UK Edition
A British artificial intelligence firm involved in the Vote Leave campaign has been handed a £400,000 contract to tap data from places such as social media sites to help steer the Government's response to Covid-19.
Official documents from the Government show Faculty Science was awarded the contract by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in April to provide data scientists who could set up "alternative data sources (e.g. social media, utility providers and telecom bills, credit rating agencies, etc.)".
They would, the contract said, apply data science and machine learning to the data, which could help identify trends, and then develop "interactive dashboards" to inform policymakers.
It is understood the contract, awarded through the Government's G-Cloud framework, was designed to address an urgent need for the department to analyse real-time data and monitor the effect of Covid-19 on local communities.
Faculty's AI technology can be used to process vast amounts of data and in the past was used for polling analysis by the Vote Leave campaign, run by Boris Johnson's adviser Dominic Cummings.
Since then, Faculty has also had projects with the Home Office to develop terrorist blocking systems, as well as having been brought in to introduce artificial intelligence across governmental departments.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been working with US firm Palantir for the NHS to compile patient data and prepare hospitals for spikes in demand.
Prior to the latest £400,000 contract award, Faculty was reported to have won seven government contracts over an 18-month period.
However, the company's ties to government have come under scrutiny in recent months.
Its boss Marc Warner, whose brother Ben Warner is understood to act as a Downing Street data scientist, revealed he had sat in on a meeting by Sage, the committee of scientists advising the Government on the pandemic. The company at the time said Mr Warner had been an observer.
It also emerged that Lord Agnew, a minister in the Cabinet Office, was a shareholder in the company - something watchdog group Spotlight on Corruption warned in April could "pose questions of perceived conflict of interest".
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office stressed that "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."
Faculty declined to comment.