British police forces have signed contracts with a controversial US tech giant to buy AI-powered software that uses data about an individual’s race, sex life, health and political beliefs, it can be revealed.
An internal police memo obtained by The i Paper and Liberty Investigates confirms an intention to “nationally” apply the “Nectar” intelligence system, currently deployed as a pilot by the Bedfordshire force after being developed with Silicon Valley data analysis group Palantir Technologies. The document, obtained under freedom of information rules, shows how the Palantir system is designed to bring together dozens of existing law enforcement databases into a single computing platform to draw up detailed profiles of suspects, as well as collate information on victims of crime, witnesses, and vulnerable individuals including children.
Read more…
Source: The iPaper News
Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.
Related:
- UK government investigates possible cyberattack link to London Stock exchange outage
January 6, 2020
The UK government is reexamining the London Stock Exchange outage to ascertain whether or not a cyberattack, rather than a software glitch, was the cause. The LSE’s outage occurred on August 16, 2019. A “software glitch” was blamed in which Friday early-morning traders were left unable to buy or sell shares for over an hour and a half. Both ...
- New Year Honours: Government faces multi-million pound compensation bill over leaked private details
December 29, 2019
The Government is facing fines and a compensation bill running into millions of pounds after the disclosure of the home addresses of counter-terrorism experts, senior police officers and celebrities on the new year honours list. Senior figures demanded an exhaustive inquiry into the circumstances which led to the personal details of more than 1,000 individuals who will ...
- Cyber security takes its place alongside UK’s armed services
December 6, 2019
The pervasiveness of information and the pace of technological change are utterly transforming the character of warfare in the 21st Century, and the cyber security industry has earned a seat at the table alongside the army, navy and air force, according to General Sir Nick Carter, chief of the defence staff. Carter, who served in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan ...
- NCA: Cyber-crime site selling hacking tool taken down following international operation
November 29, 2019
A website which sold a hacking tool purchased by cyber criminals in 124 countries and gave full remote control of victims’ computers has been taken down following an international investigation. 14,500 people across the world purchased the Imminent Monitor Remote Access Trojan (IM RAT) from https://imminentmethods.net for as little as US$25. Once covertly installed on a victim’s computer, IM ...
- Cyber security skills shortage near breaking point
November 27, 2019
The UK’s widening cyber skills gap is putting the country’s businesses at risk, with uncertainty around Brexit is also proving to be a huge concern for recruitment in the field. This is according to research from cyber security consultancy RedSeal, which ran an online survey of 502 IT decision-makers from across the country. Within it, 95% of CIOs and ...
- House of Commons looking for new cyber security director
November 20, 2019
The UK House of Commons is looking to appoint a new Director of Cyber Security for the Parliamentary Digital Service. A contract notice published on the Civil Service Jobs website stated that the selected candidate will have to take overall responsibility for the Palace of Westminster’s cybersecurity strategy. Work involves maintaining awareness of both internal and external ...

