Artificial intelligence firm, Faculty Science Ltd., has been given a new pandemic contract valued at £400,000 to help the government combat the effects of the virus pandemic. The contract was awarded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) last month.
The announcement of this public contract comes as civil liberties groups question the hiring of private firms and companies by the government. By extension, The Guardian reveals that there has been speculation surrounding how these companies are using private and confidential information.
In the past, the artificial intelligence firm has also been awarded a number of government contracts within the past two years. The total number of contracts amounts to at least nine and is said to be valued at £1.6 million, reports The Guardian.
The project, called ‘Data scientists for MHCLG Covid-19 response’ started on April 16, 2020 and is expected to end in July 2020. However, the government only released a summary of the contract by the end of May, states The Canary.
The contract sees the project as a “provision of data scientist capability and support data sources and analysis to support MHCLG in response” to the pandemic. Most of those awarded with agreements are expected to “organise data-matching technologies and provide specialist support.”
By leveraging these technologies, policymakers would identify trends with the supposed “interactive dashboards” provided by Faculty Science Ltd. The artificial intelligence technology by Faculty will be utilized to process and analyze the data used.
According to the Telegraph, the same technology was used in the polling analysis in the Vote Leave campaign, linked to the Dominic Cummings, the adviser of Boris Johnson.
With links to Tory figures in the Cabinet and Downing Street, Faculty has declined to reveal the number of government contracts it has been awarded in connection to its work in the pandemic.
As part of its contract, Faculty is slated to analyze social media data alongside the public’s utility bills and credit rating scores. Telecom bills would also be part of the agreement in attempts to further the government’s understanding of the effects of the virus pandemic on the people.
With the disclosure of this data, a number of detractors say questioned the attendance of Ben Warner who acted as a data scientist for Downing Street and who sat in a meeting by Sage, a committee in charge of advising the British government on the pandemic.
Cabinet Office minister Lord Agnew, Telegraph reports, was also a shareholder in the firm. However, the office issued a statement saying, “Lord Agnew has had no involvement in any decisions about the award of these contracts to Faculty Science.”
“The Minister’s interest has been declared in accordance with the procedure in the Ministerial Code,” said the spokesman.
