Thread by @allthecitizens

🚨EXCLUSIVE:

Almost £100m in government contracts given to controversial tech companies Palantir and Faculty, a 16 month investigation by @allthecitizens and @BylineTimes reveals - far more than previously reported. THREAD:

The total in gov contracts awarded to Palantir and Faculty now sits at £94m and £11.2m, with 11 of Faculty’s 20 public sector awards, and 7 of Palantir’s, being awarded in 2020-21 alone, worth some £9.2m and £49m respectively

.@allthecitizens had previously reported that Palantir had won work with a number of government agencies. These included GCHQ:

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1351153879002603522?s=20

The Ministry of Defence:

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1365270217241358340?s=20

The NHS / DHSC:

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1348978137372237824?s=20

Local Authorities:

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1364907586395529218?s=20

The Police:

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1350133940867239937?s=20

And finally with the Cabinet Office:

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1368992433657233412?s=20

We also broke news of Palantir’s involvement in a group award, platform building for Crown Commercial Services (CCS), their work isn’t costed, but along with some small contract extensions pushes the amount to likely more than the £91-94m we first reported

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1384874266101960705?s=20

With Faculty, @allthecitizens originally reported that they’d won £8.3m over 17 contracts, with 10 issued between 2020-21.
Our total now includes £2.4m from DCMS in April 2020, and 2 smaller historic, previously uncosted awards with TfL and the Home Office

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1407704170543595522?s=20

The involvement of both firms within the public sector raises questions, Both companies have been linked to arguably controversial data projects in recent years.

Palantir’s ‘predictive policing’ software, deployed in L.A. and New Orleans, has repeatedly been criticised, with some claiming it could lead to biased surveillance and undue police focus in already hyper-policed communities.
theintercept.com/2018/05/11/pre…

Palantir’s work on the controversial US military AI initiative ‘Project Maven’, which Google backed out of citing ethical concerns, facilitated building a surveillance platform for drone warfare.
thenextweb.com/news/report-pa…

And the work they undertook for ICE Immigration forces, building its ‘Investigative Case Management’ system, was said to have enabled authorities to track migrant families, - instrumental in the targeting of sometimes vulnerable individuals for deportation
theintercept.com/2017/03/02/pal…

Faculty, too have been accused of links to controversial projects.. Under the name ‘ASI’, they were hired by Vote Leave to conduct ‘market research’ over Brexit. invoices for the work stated they conducted ‘data polling and analysis’

During testimony to the DCMS select committee, whistleblower Chris Wylie claimed ASI were subcontracted to Cambridge Analytica (CA). Faculty contests those claims, but are known to have been involved in a fellowship scheme with CA affiliate SCL Elections.
middleeasteye.net/news/home-offi…

During the pandemic, Faculty were also hired to model and forecast on social media data for MHCLG, work The Guardian said was a contract to ‘analyse UK citizens’ tweets’.
theguardian.com/world/2020/aug…

Beyond concerns about data protection, such as with the currently-stalled GP data grab, a deeper concern with groups like Palantir and Faculty is around regulation, oversight and a public understanding of what is being done with government data by commercial companies.

As we’ve seen, these companies are very much focused on the Public sector. If this means that commercial companies are getting unprecedented access to data-sets, such access should be debated.

From police records and NHS data, to becoming the platform which all back-end gov data is processed on (as per Palantir’s Border Flow / CCS work) - the expansion of Palantir and Faculty into government, and the precedent it sets, needs to be weighed against the public interest.

For the full @BylineTimes write-up by @MC_00_, please follow the link below:

bylinetimes.com/2021/07/30/rev…