George Simion announced the launch of the AUR application during the congress of the Romanian Republican Party on June 11, through a video on his Facebook page.
The video with almost 60,000 views and more than 6,000 reactions is titled: “Congress! I request everyone to download the app or try it on aur.mobi (Beta – trial version)”.
The mobilization of the Internet and the use of new technologies are specific to all parties, but the European action shows that newly founded parties achieve special performance in these areas.
What happened in Italy
The data collected from millions of supporters and how they are used become valuable in themselves.
For example, those in the leadership of the Cinque Star party in Italy, as shown in an investigative book by the Italian author Nicola Biondo (himself a former head of communications for the party), turned the digital data collected from politics into a business private .
The creators and administrators of the application are not a charity, but a limited company. And it has an obvious interest in controlling this data: knowing the profile of people connected to the Movement – who they are, where they live, how they vote, what donations they make – this has inestimable commercial value.
Giuliano da Empoli – “Engineer of Chaos”, on the online application of the Five Star Movement in Italy:
In Romania, the online application of AUR is just at the beginning and any assumption is premature. Libertatea talked to the heads of the AUR, used the AUR application and gathered the opinions of state officials and experts.
The newspaper spoke to the positive governance specialist Septimius Pârvu, from the Expert Forum, the president of AEP Toni Greblă and Bogdan Ivanel, from the association Code4Romania, about the payments to the party and the collection of personal data that the party makes through applications the
1,500 lei for a tour of the Parliament Palace and a t-shirt
How does it work? Once you download the AUR application, you can make a profile as an AUR supporter. You are asked for data such as your name, phone number, city and UAT. Photography is optional.
The created profile shows the number of points you have accumulated, the points collected if you buy support packages or perform other actions in the application, such as inviting a friend or filling your profile with other data about yourself.
AUR has three subscription packages in the application, compared to one, as long as it is present on the website.
- standard package – costs 100 lei and gives you a 10% discount in the AUR store, organized tour of the Romanian Parliament and a tricolor;
- silver package – costs 1,500 lei and you get books, 15% discount in the AUR store, organized tour of the Parliament, a flag and a t-shirt;
- gold package – costs 5,000 lei and for this money you get books, 20% discount in the AUR store, organized tour of the Parliament, a flag, a t-shirt, a badge, access to AUR conferences and events and a “one on one. “meeting with the party president.
AUR made more than a million lei by buying promotional packages
AUR President George Simion contacted Libertatea, said that at the end of June more than 3,000 people bought these packages in the app: 2,893 standard packages, 98 silver packages and 217 gold packages. In less than two weeks, since the application was launched, the party collected more than one million lei.
When asked what books the silver and gold package contained, George Simion said that they were books written by Claudiu Târziu, one of the leaders of the AUR, “which were not sold, so that we could give them to our colleagues for free” and ” the book I wrote – “How I met Klaus Iohannis, Dan Barna, Traian Băsescu and Ion Iliescu”, likewise, without financial obligations, because I wrote it in 2019″, the AUR leader added.
Simion says he gives these books for free. nonetheless, the volumes are included in the packages paid for by AUR application users.
A tour of Parliament, included in the silver and gold package
A tour of the Palace of the Parliament costs 60 lei for an adult, according to the website of the Chamber of Deputies, and in the AUR packages, it is included only for the cards 1,500 and 5,000 lei.
Basically, you need almost a minimum wage in Romania for AUR to give you a tour of the People’s House, a flag, a t-shirt and the books listed above.
Anyone who donates money to AUR automatically becomes a party member
The user can buy one of three packages in the app, depending on the money they want to donate to the party. The application does not specify whether or not once you buy a package you will automatically count as a “GOLD member”.
George Simion explained that the moment a person buys one of the three packages, that person automatically becomes a member of the party. That is, the party will count him as an AUR member.
When purchasing a package, nonetheless, the app takes you directly to “checkout” with no option to choose whether you agree to become an AUR member or not. There were no such options when the account was created either.
But in other categories of the app there is a difference between “supporters” and “GOLD members”.
Restricted access to teams
Another option in the app menu takes you to Teams, which you only have access to if you are, according to your in-app profile, at least a “Beginner Supporter”. For this, you need to purchase one of the three Party Support Packages.
The application works like a game. There is no rule book that tells you the steps you must go through to collect points or level up.
Multi-page application prompt: purchase support package.
AUR hears you – you and your data
There is also a named page in the application aur te aude. More precisely, the users of the application can report here the problems identified in the country or abroad. At the time of writing, 101 problems have been reported in Romania, 16 in Italy and one in Great Britain.
Expert in positive governance and electoral process Septimius Pârvu believes that this application is also a positive way for the party to collect data from people, being a step to start the electoral campaign. When you create your account, you must enter your name, phone number, country, county, city and the Administrative-Territorial Unit you belong to:
“It’s a very positive source to collect data from people who create an account in the app, including people who are just curious about what the app does,” Pârvu explained to us.
Simion: “We use data to keep in touch with our members and supporters”
The profile is not complete just by the data entered when creating the account. The application also allows you to enter CNP, serial and bulletin numbers.
In the menu of the application you can even fill in your personal action. When you complete it, you get two points. You can include your studies, professional activities, political and administrative action and known foreign languages.
You can also register other people in the application, as long as you enter their data. This also earns you profile points. After entering their name and phone number, the registrant receives an SMS with the password and instructions to download the application.
Simion said that the collected data will be used to send notifications to users and inform them about party activities: “We use the data to keep in touch with our members and supporters.”
I asked the CEO of Code for Romania Bogdan Ivănel if this collection conforms to market norms.
“In this situation, we do not have enough access to be able to do a technical analysis of all the aspects involved (eg data collection flow). Given the high impact of such a political party application, we believe it is important that these digital solutions are independently auditable. Just as, on several occasions, the Code for Romania called for open, auditable solutions in the case of public services, we believe that these standards should be regulated and followed by political parties as well”.
AUR asks users whether or not they attend consultations
Another option in the application is to vote for future party actions. “It’s a democratic process,” Simion described the function.
Among the first consultations were in two voting sessions, both concluded on June 12: “Do we appear in the fake consultations from Cotroceni?”, where 1,733 users voted “for” and 479 “against” and “Medical system there in the villages. Romania, between forgetting and waiting”.
In the letter, it is not specified what the people should vote for, only a presentation of the medical system and some of the goals of the AUR, including increasing the life expectancy in Romania and improving the health of the population. There were 2,848 votes “for” and 25 “against”.
Next to the voting section are events organized by the party section and each event you participate in earns you a point. Among them are the launch of party campaigns, public debates and even sporting events, in various parts of the country.
The AUR plagiarism newsroom
The “Latest News” section should feature news or party releases. It’s just that some of these are copied. At the end of some published articles the source is mentioned, but there is no correct citation. Sources include bzi.ro or news.ro.
Other articles did not mention any source, but were also copied from 60m.ro or ropres.ro.
The question of Libertatea who wrote these articles, the president of AUR told us that these materials “are made by colleagues from the communication department”.
The creator is SC Spark Consult SRL
AUR stated that the app is still in BETA, which means it still has some bugs and is being tested. Usually the BETA version is only available to some users, but the AUR app has no such restrictions. The application was made by SC Spark Consult SRL, according to George Simion.
Between legality and ethics
Septimius Pârvu Expert Forum puts the packages offered in the application in a legal gray area, as the “quotes” of these parties are usually given to party members.
And the leader of the AUR, George Simion, told us that the moment you pay your dues, you join the party. As a user of the app, we were sent directly to payment without having to become an AUR member.
positive governance experts believe that the promised 5,000 lei package, namely a meeting with parliamentarians, is unethical.
“Paying to meet a party leader does not seem ethical from a political party, especially one that is represented in Parliament. I don’t think they should ask for money in broker meetings. Simion is a parliamentarian. Access to a parliamentarian, how should it be done? Overloading? I don’t think it’s ethical at all”, added Septimius Pârvu.
George Simion says it’s common practice to meet with paid people. The party, Simion added, was even inspired by the practices of politicians in America: “it is like a fundraiser like in the United States, and there are meetings with those who pay this fee, this contribution.”
Contacted by Libertatea, the president of the Permanent Electoral Authority, Toni Greblă, said that he does not know enough data to be able to say whether these payments to the party are illegal or not, but he specified that he will make a check there. next period: “I can not prejudge before checking,” he said.
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