European parliamentarians can be a fastidious, tenacious bunch and that, many times, is an excellent thing.  One such example is how they will not let go of the unholy relationship between Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.

That relationship, and the effect it may have had on the Brexit referendum, the election of Donald Trump in the United States and on the manipulation of democracy elsewhere, was in focus at the European Parliament once again yesterday, and this issue should have a particular import for us Maltese as well.

Maltese citizens, after all, should really be taking an interest in how its citizens’ data has been harvested by the pair of companies.  Although ‘only’ 6,011 Maltese citizens had their data harvested by the controversial firm, Malta’s per capita proportion makes it the most ‘harvested’ country in the European Union after the United Kingdom.

The Maltese government has denied any sort of involvement with the firm, but it still stands to be determined why the company had taken such an interest in tiny Malta, so much so that close to one in 70 Maltese Facebook users are reported by the European Commission to have had their data mined and harvested by Cambridge Analytica.

Such campaigns are not conducted on a whim, there is always rhyme and reason behind them. And while the details of 6,000-odd people may not seem like a mountain of data, it is significant for a country of this size, as it is far more than enough of a sample size to carry out psychological electioneering profiling, and who knows what else.

This in itself is utterly shocking and warrants a domestic investigation.

But it does not stop there, at least not in the eyes of MEP Ana Gomes, a continual thorn in the side of her fellow Socialist, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

In her albeit short intervention yesterday morning she played a connect-the-dots game and drew a most disconcerting picture.  She did not mention Malta by name but the writing is very much right there on the wall quite clearly for all and sundry to read.

The fact that Facebook shared copious amounts of EU citizens’ data with Cambridge Analytica, she said, goes well beyond the already concerning breaches of the protection of citizens’ data, it has also been shown that it can open the door to organised crime.

She drew the well-reported and highly suspect link between Cambridge Analytica and SCL, which, in turn, is linked to passport sellers Henley & Partners, the concessionaires of Malta’s controversial IIP programme.

She went on to comment how if we as a bloc are truly serious about data protection that we should not overlook the involvement of Chinese companies already in the EU and which are involved in facial recognition technology on a massive scale.

Cue Malta’s warm reception of Chinese mobile operator Huawei’s 5G operations in Malta. Huawei, it must be noted, has already been practically blocked out of the US market after six top intelligence chiefs - including the CIA, FBI, NSA and the director of national intelligence - told the US Senate Intelligence Committee that they would not advise Americans to use products or services from Huawei.

Huawei has also been blocked from rolling out Australia's 5G network due to security concerns as the involvement of a company ‘likely to be subject to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government’ simply presented too much of a risk.

If other countries who are serious about their citizens’ privacy are taking such steps, one must wonder why Malta is welcoming the company’s 5G technology with open arms. One should also wonder what assurances, if any, the Maltese has sought from the operator that

Now link this to the Prime Minister’s announcement last Sunday that the government is looking into installing facial recognition technology – a massive area of development for Huawei - on the streets of Malta to prevent lawlessness, as opposed to the far more sensible option of putting more police officers on the beat.

We do not think Ana Gomes is the only person wondering what is going on here.  She mentioned how China’s facial recognition surveillance is being used in that country to create scorecards on citizens’ behaviour. 

This suspect sequence of events in Malta is highly concerning but the government will, no doubt, put this all down to a combination of happenstance and tin foil hat conspiracies.

Such things may be allowable in places like China but in the EU this is anathema to citizens’ right to privacy, and the mere thought of the implementation of any trace of such technology should make people recoil in horror.  But the Maltese government, naïvely or is giving them all a very warm welcome.

This is not China and such developments are certainly not welcome. Any moves in these directions need to be viewed with a very critical eye, unless we are willing to surrender the liberties that we hold dear as a democratic, free country.