The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has awarded a contract to the artificial intelligence company Faculty, a firm hired to work on the Vote Leave campaign, that may allow it to analyse social media data, utility bills and credit rating scores. The contract is a £400,000 contract to help the government deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
The contract was awarded in May last month. Full details of its work for the government are unknown because the published version of the contract was partly redacted. The MHCLG contract, entitled “Data scientists for MHCLG Covid-19 response”, was awarded in April and will run until July.
Full story in The Guardian, 2 June 2020
