2/ Faculty AI was set up by the Warner brothers. They worked on Tory election & Leave campaigns.

They both attended SAGE meetings. Ben was in 13 of 34 meetings.

Faculty, won a £250m NHS contract last August (this was only publicly announced on 13 March).
3/. Faculty AI (formerly known as ASI Datascience) has so far won 13 govt contracts.

Faculty rprtdly employed several Cambridge Analytica employees to provide the data behind Cummings Vote Leave data team. That data was turned over AIQ for microtargeting. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/vote-leave-ai-firm-wins-seven-government-contracts-in-18-months
10/. Palantir is named after a device in Lord of the Rings that allows characters to omnisciently see anything.

Their contract for a "Covid Data Store" permits processing data including:

👉racial origin
👉political affiliations
👉religion
👉criminal records
👉mental health info
12/. “The vast increase in welfare beneficiaries & the extension of the franchise to women have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ an oxymoron.” (Peter Thiel, 2009)

White supremacist Curtis Yarvin wrote Peter Thiel is “fully enlightened, just plays it very carefully.”
14/. Palantir is building the "Protect Now" #COVID digital platform for the US Dept of Health as well as one for the NHS.

Palantir are reportedly only charging the UK govt £1 for the work which begs the question: "What are they getting out of it?"

The answer, no doubt, is data.
15/. Big Tech mine & sell our data, but the new frontier - worth billions - lies not in our consumer behaviour, but in our biological selves.

As James Watson, who discovered the structure of DNA said: Our fates lie in our genes and not in the stars.

But who controls that fate?
16/. The idea of sequencing the genomes of millions of people for medical & scientific use isn't new.

In 2012, a US biotech firm paid $415 million for a company to get access to the genetic data of the entire population of Iceland where conditions for genetic research are ideal.
19/. Health data in US & UK is governed by strict data privacy rules but - by partnering with govts - companies can walk away with lucrative AI models.

Legally, they cannot retain direct patient records, worth billions.

This helps explain why Palantir, are working for just £1.
20/. The article concludes: "It is now clear that continuous high-levels of population-scale testing will be necessary if we are to co-exist with #coronavirus out-of-lockdown. But people need to be able to trust that when they take a #COVID19 test, that their data is protected."
21/. “Population-scale testing” may seem like a distant ambition in UK & US where a functioning #COVID19 test & trace system is still not in place.

But, it is not.

In April, it was reported that 50 million British-developed anti-body test kits had been ordered by the UK govt.
22/. In April, the PM announced that the govt was setting up a rapid testing consortium (UK-RTC) to provide fast, accurate pregnancy-style home test kits for #Covid19 antibodies.

The test would be a "gamechanger" allowing people to test in of 15 minutes in from their own home.
23/. Last week, @campbellclaret who is taking part in the trials posted this picture of the pin-prick, cartridge test.

50 million tests will be enough for every adult in the country.

Each test will have a barcode (QR code) that is scanned & uploaded to the NHSX platform.
24/. Data protection might not feel like a priority in a crisis but with population-wide testing possibly imminent, we should heed @amnesty's @TanyaOCarroll warning:

"If we fail to protect our health data, we will be living with the consequences long after the pandemic is over."
26/. “Cummings is an enthusiast for big tech, AI, ‘evolutionary economists’ & some of the more extreme genetic determinists associated with the ‘Bay Area Rationalists’ – a group of right-wing ‘techno libertarians’ that include Peter Thiel” says @peterjukes
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/05/28/five-things-dominic-cummings-could-have-over-boris-johnson/
27/. In his Feb 2019 blog, Cummings seems to view the NHS genomics prediction programme as a mechanism to provide Britain with “natural advantages” over other countries.

Is this what is being echoed in the PM’s 3/2 “Britain as Superman” #GreenwichSpeech? https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1279377528759685120
28/. The 2014 book Genes, Cells & Brains, talks about "the mushroom-like growth of trans-humanist institutes & research programs, financed by 'visionary philanthropists' dreaming of a positive eugenics for the 21st century. Among the most prominent is SENS funded by Peter Thiel.”
29/ "In March, @BorisJohnson held a meeting with big tech firms & healthcare players. He then granted access to millions of UK health data records to Amazon, Microsoft, Google & Palantir to build a COVID datastore aggregating data, including testing data." https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1283017971057795074
31/. UK govt stopped giving out data on numbers tested almost 2 months ago. Palantir run NHS’s digital platform

US govt have made much of their #COVID data inaccessible since HHS (health service) took over the CDC data

Palantir run HHS’s digital platform https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/16/21323458/palantir-ipo-hhs-protect-peter-thiel-cia-intelligence
32/. Last week the Trump admin ordered hospitals to bypass the CDC & send key #coronavirus information to a Washington database run by the shadowy surveillance company, Palantir

@nytimes said it had alarmed health officials.

It should alarm us all!
http://nyti.ms/3esGHK6 
33/ Just as Cummings is determined bring science closer to govt, the US's National Science Foundation (NSF) is getting a remake

Palantir are lobbing on the new Directorate of Tech which will be contained in the new NSF, registering $450k in lobbying ystdy https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/us-lawmakers-unveil-bold-100-billion-plan-remake-nsf
37/. Writing this month, @moiragweigel notes that Palantir's co-founder, Peter Thiel, "donated $1m to the Defeat Crooked Hillary campaign backed by Robert Mercer & overseen by Steve Bannon.

Mercer & Bannon are the main kingpins behind Cambridge Analytica.
https://www.boundary2.org/2020/07/moira-weigel-palantir-goes-to-the-frankfurt-school/
38/. Last week, @amnesty wrote how “people need to be able to trust that when they take a COVID19 test, that their data is protected."

The NHS is perhaps the most trusted institution in the UK. In the US, the HHS commands high levels of respect.

Palantir & Faculty, not so much.
41/. The article is an updated version of the one published 10 days ago.

Since then, Palantir has been in the news, with its announcement that it had filed to go public & with controversial developments around its multi-million $ #COVID19 work with the NHS in UK & the HHS in US.
43 - In a letter, more than 30 members of Congress, including @ewarren & @JulianCastro, called for greater transparency on how Palantir will use HHS data & guarantees that it will be kept anonymised. In 2017/18 Palantir’s data helped aid ICE deportations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/01/warren-hhs-data-collection/
44 - As with the NHS, #Palantir was awarded the HHS contracts without tendering

They are rprtdly aiding national COVID responses in over a DOZEN countries, including Greece, Austria, Spain & Canada.

They also claim to be in talks with “several dozen” countries around the world.
45 - Palantir is also making its software available for free to govts.

This wouldn’t be the 1st time Palantir offered its services for free, e.g. in New Orleans, they deployed a predictive policing system that even city council members didn’t know about.
46 - In January, @Slate published a list of "the most dangerous tech companies in the world".

They had polled journalists, academics, advocates etc. & drew up a list of 30 companies.

#Palantir came fourth!
1. Amazon
2. Facebook
3. Alphabet
4. Palantir https://slate.com/technology/2020/01/evil-list-tech-companies-dangerous-amazon-facebook-google-palantir.amp#click=https://t.co/9Ee9myiyyH
47 - “We’ve arranged a society based on science & technology, in which nobody understands anything about science & technology. This combustible mixture of ignorance & power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces.” (Carl Sagan,1996)

I fear it is blowing up right now.
48 - In the interests of journalistic impartiality, please see #Palantir's statement on privacy & civil liberties.

It finishes by saying: "The end goal should be... incorporating technical capabilities that can support responsible data handling policies.” https://www.palantir.com/pcl/ 
49 - Here is the $7.5 million contract between #Palantir & US govt to build the platform for the Dept of Health (HHS):
"Palantir HHS Protect Platform Services".

A search on "HHS Protect" shows one result (i.e. no one else worked it). Via @WendySiegelman
https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/fpdsportal?indexName=awardfull&templateName=1.5.1&s=FPDS.GOV&q=HHS+protect&x=25&y=6
This is another essential thread about #Palantir showing the parallels btw their work in the US & in the UK

According to @ConMijente, in the 4 years since #PeterThiel helped Trump get elected, Palantir have received +$1bn in gov contracts

Sound familiar? https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1286946529446699008
According to early Facebook investor, Roger McNamee (aka @Moonalice):

“Palantir exists to allow law enforcement to investigate citizens without obtaining a warrant...The business model of #Palantir undermines civil rights.” (via @profgalloway)
You can follow @StefSimanowitz.
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