Snapchat parent company allowed Democratic campaigns access to Republican data

Snapchat parent company Snap accidentally gave several Democratic campaigns access to Republican voter data for their midterm election advertisements, allowing them to target them across the aisle.

Snap’s political ad records show that multiple Democratic organizations used their ads in relation to data released by the Republican firm i360. Firms like i360 typically make their data available to a number of advertisers on the platform but limit availability to preapproved organizations. Snap failed to account for those preapprovals, thus making the data available to the opposition.

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“Unfortunately, due to an internal mistake, we didn’t follow this usual process — which resulted in these two companies’ services being used by advertisers outside of the process, impacting a small number of ads,” a Snap spokesperson told Axios.

i360’s data were available to a number of Democratic-affiliated organizations, including the Democratic National Committee, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and Stacey Abrams’s gubernatorial campaign.

Republicans also gained access to data from the Democratic data firm TargetSmart during this period. The data were used by organizations like the Daily Wire. There is no evidence that data from either firm were used knowingly for malicious purposes.

“We take full responsibility for this mistake, and as soon as we became aware of it, we notified the two Democratic and Republican vendors who were equally impacted, and took action to correct the issue. We are also taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” the spokesperson added.

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“i360 did not authorize this use of its data, and its agreements with advertising platforms like Snap do not allow for the use of its political data by these organizations,” an i360 spokesperson said in a statement.

The data blunder occurred after Snapchat decided to cut 20% of its staff after a dismal second-quarter earnings report.