"Massive NHS COVID-19 data deal with private tech firms, the UK government has caved to pressure and released all the contracts governing its deals with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and controversial AI firms Faculty and Palantir. /1 @Medact https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/under-pressure-uk-government-releases-nhs-covid-data-deals-big-tech/

The contracts, released to openDemocracy and tech justice firm Foxglove today, reveal details of what has been described as an ‘unprecedented’ transfer of personal health information of millions of NHS users to these private tech firms./2

Palantir, founded by Silicon Valley billionaire and close Trump ally Peter Thiel, is a data-mining firm best known for supporting the CIA’s counterinsurgency and intelligence operations in Iraq and Afghanistan./3

[Palantir] was criticised for its support for US ICE’s brutal regime of deportations[..] Contracts with US police forces revealed problems with access to sensitive data, prices rising over time, and a lack of public trust in their ‘predictive policing’ products."/4

There you have, the lines between COVID, racist police and counter-terrorism profiling and private surveillance capitalists come full circle. This pandemic is going to mark a new, terrible chapter in racist surveillance for the Global North./end