Tech firms shown to be using information to build ‘Covid-19 data store’
British patients' confidential information is being used by tech firms in a data-mining operation that is part of the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to documents seen by The Guardian.
Faculty, a British artificial intelligence startup, is working with Palantir, the US data firm founded by the rightwing billionaire Peter Thiel, to consolidate government databases with a view to helping ministers and officials respond to the pandemic.
Faculty is also using the data to build predictive computer models based on the covid-19 outbreak. Two weeks ago, Faculty allegedly considered running a computer simulation to assess the impact of a policy of “targeted herd immunity”. Lawyers for Faculty said, however, the proposed herd immunity simulation never took place.
The tech companies were contracted by the digital transformation arm of the National Health Service, NHSX, to help build the “covid-19 datastore with a view to giving 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.
Such data, even if annonymized, is still sensitive and confidential and its use in a centralized government database is certain to raise question among privacy advocates.
Senior NHS officials have insisted the operation is only temporary, saying, “When the pandemic abates and the outbreak is contained, we will close the covid-19 datastore.” However, a Whitehall source speaking with The Guardian said there was lingering concerns in the civil service that the powerful new apparatus could outlast the crisis.
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