national health service UK (NHS) has provided secret us technology firm Palantir access to personal data of millions of British citizens, according to CNBC, citing a contract published last Friday.
Data includes personal contact information, gender, race, occupation, physical and mental health, past criminal offenses, as well as religious and political affiliation.
the Contract known as the agreement on the exchange of data, was published on a political website OpenDemocracy and the law firm Foxglove along with similar contracts with Google, Microsoft and AI Faculty startup.
“the Contracts show that the companies involved, including Faculty and Palantir, was initially the intellectual property rights (including database creation), and they were allowed to train their models and make a profit from the unprecedented data access NHS” —wrote the chief editor of openDemocracy, Mary Fitzgerald (Mary Fitzgerald) and founder of Foxglove lawyer Corey KREIDER (Crider Cori) on the blog.
the Data are a very valuable commodity for tech giants, and the personal data of patients are one of the most popular.
the Contracts show that the company Palantir has requested £1 (us$1.27) for the use of its software for managing data Foundry, while Google has offered “technical, Advisory and other support” free of charge.
All tech firms were attracted by the British government to create a national platform that would allow health officials to understand the spread of the coronavirus across the UK, and to help them properly allocate resources.
Details about the creation of the platform was unveiled in March, but the British government refused to publish all the important agreement on the exchange of data after a number queries on freedom of information, including from CNBC. The contracts were finally released last week after OpenDemocracy and Foxglove threatened prosecution.
Palantir is a private company whose activities are largely secret. The company specializiruetsya on big data technologies and well-known collaboration with the CIA, FBI and the US army. Founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, an ally of President Donald trump, Palantir develops sophisticated tools for data analysis and visualization, which help government agencies, banks and other organizations to support information security, to combat terrorism and identify fraud. In particular, the company used U.S. intelligence to monitor the ex-head of “al-Qaeda” (an organization banned in Russia) Osama bin Laden.
Palantir sees huge opportunities in Europe, and is currently in his London office works more than employees, than in its headquarters in California.
In September last year, Palantir was going to attract new funding in the amount of $26 billion, according to Reuters. It is expected that this year its revenue will reach $1 billion.
