The Guardian view on big data: the danger is less democracy | Editorial

The information gathered about us by the internet giants makes our political system vulnerable to new forms of manipulationThe Observer’s discovery that a secretive firm apparently bankrolled by a rightwing billionaire was at work in the Brexit referendum to sway voters selected on the basis of their Facebook profiles highlights the way in which the erosion of privacy can lead to an erosion of democracy – and will inevitably do so without firm, clear, principled action by governments