As a rule, the software masks identifying information, Polak says: «Only when something is deemed to be a threat do you get approval from the chief privacy officer or part of the legal team to be able to break the glass» — decrypting more
granular personal data — «and see who the individual is,» he adds.
The trove of documents shared publicly by the company's former research director, Christopher Wylie, illustrates that
granular personal data on each of us can be used to create precise messages to any individual voter, then delivered to us through the online ecosystem over Facebook, Instagram, Google, Twitter and other free services.