Thread by @allthecitizens

As @allthecitizens map the expanding reach of controversial company Palantir into UK institutions, we’ve found £91m+ contracts awarded to the US surveillance outfit across British government. Let’s look at their work with local authorities...THREAD

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1346883476889378819?s=20

In 2014 Sunderland City Council began operating an “intelligence hub” using Palantir software to “gather, process, and share data and information to help us better understand our customers and communities (and their) patterns of behaviour”.

The 5 yr project, developed under the council’s Community Leadership Programme to achieve “£100m of budget reductions”, ran with Palantir until July 2019, and cost £4.5m - once the contract ended it was hoped Sunderland Council would run it autonomously.
publictechnology.net/articles/news/…

A Sunderland council spokesperson told @allthecitizens it still operates today (without Palantir toolsets), and “addresses the need for effective information”, providing “an appropriate intelligence infrastructure for the city”, likely accessing the data below.

But such data-heavy solutions can become problematic when dealing with more sensitive areas. For instance, Sunderland used systems called Adult 360 (Golden View) and ‘Troubled Families’, both with Palantir software.
doc.gold.ac.uk/~bjohn002/coun…

Adult 360 was built to “bring together information about a person and their life from across a number of source systems”. As the graphic shows, it gathered information on hospital visits, income, and a host of other possibly sensitive information about people:

The ‘Troubled Families’ programme focused on citizens “at risk”, defined as having 2 of 6 problems outlined by the Ministry of Housing. Sunderland combined datasets to create a library of those deemed at risk, and their family and social connections.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-brief…

This included data from police/young offenders records. The concern is it uses algorithms to decide how people are treated, creating potential bias, and focuses on past offenders. Some say such approaches to reduce systemic problems is overstated
transformingsociety.co.uk/2020/01/20/why…

Sunderland also say they share data from this hub with local law enforcement, who in turn use Palantir software to analyse citizen data, in particular under their ‘Transform Police’ initiative,an information sharing initiative run by 5 local constabularies

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1350133963927547905?s=20

While good data may improve local services, substantial private citizen information held by councils, shared with police and run on Palantir software, is worrying. Who ensures this data is not used in ways for which it was not originally intended?

And, given that Palantir is now securing contracts with the MOD, Cabinet Office, NHS and others, what national and regional oversight is in place to ensure that the data they have access to - your data - is not used for purposes it was never intended?