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Palantir - UK government using confidential patient data in coronavirus response
Documents seen by Guardian show tech firms using information to build ‘Covid-19 datastore’
Technology firms are processing large volumes of confidential UK patient information in a data-mining operation that is part of the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to documents seen by the Guardian.
Palantir, the US big data firm founded by the rightwing billionaire Peter Thiel, is working with Faculty, a British artificial intelligence startup, to consolidate government databases and help ministers and officials respond to the pandemic.
Data is also being used by Faculty to build predictive computer models around the Covid-19 outbreak. One NHS document suggests that, two weeks ago, Faculty considered running a computer simulation to assess the impact of a policy of “targeted herd immunity”. Lawyers for Faculty said the proposed herd immunity simulation never took place.
NHSX, the digital transformation arm of the National Health Service that has contracted the tech companies to help build the “Covid-19 datastore”, said the technology would give ministers and officials “real-time information about health services, showing where demand is rising and where critical equipment needs to be deployed”.
“The companies involved do not control the data and are not permitted to use or share it for their own purposes,” a spokesperson said. Faculty’s lawyers said the firm only had access to aggregated or anonymised data via NHS systems.
The government had previously said it would use Faculty and Palantir in a Covid-19 data project. But the full scope of that operation, and the sensitive nature of patient-level data being used, is revealed in the documents seen by the Guardian.
👉🏼 Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-using-confidential-patient-data-in-coronavirus-response
#palantir #thiel #BigData #uk #coronavirus #datastore
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
Documents seen by Guardian show tech firms using information to build ‘Covid-19 datastore’
Technology firms are processing large volumes of confidential UK patient information in a data-mining operation that is part of the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to documents seen by the Guardian.
Palantir, the US big data firm founded by the rightwing billionaire Peter Thiel, is working with Faculty, a British artificial intelligence startup, to consolidate government databases and help ministers and officials respond to the pandemic.
Data is also being used by Faculty to build predictive computer models around the Covid-19 outbreak. One NHS document suggests that, two weeks ago, Faculty considered running a computer simulation to assess the impact of a policy of “targeted herd immunity”. Lawyers for Faculty said the proposed herd immunity simulation never took place.
NHSX, the digital transformation arm of the National Health Service that has contracted the tech companies to help build the “Covid-19 datastore”, said the technology would give ministers and officials “real-time information about health services, showing where demand is rising and where critical equipment needs to be deployed”.
“The companies involved do not control the data and are not permitted to use or share it for their own purposes,” a spokesperson said. Faculty’s lawyers said the firm only had access to aggregated or anonymised data via NHS systems.
The government had previously said it would use Faculty and Palantir in a Covid-19 data project. But the full scope of that operation, and the sensitive nature of patient-level data being used, is revealed in the documents seen by the Guardian.
👉🏼 Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-using-confidential-patient-data-in-coronavirus-response
#palantir #thiel #BigData #uk #coronavirus #datastore
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv