Of all the analytics firms in the world, why is Palantir getting its claws into UK health data?
Comment Most people are aware of some things and not aware of other things. But UK health secretary Matt Hancock isn't sure if he's aware of something or not.
The "something" in question is whether there are links between Palantir, the controversial military-linked US analytics company, and Cambridge Analytica, the UK analytics company at the heart of the Facebook data scandal which worked with Donald Trump's campaign in the run-up to his 2016 election.
It was posed by Dawn Butler, a Labour MP and member of the Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee, to which Hancock was giving evidence last week.
The health sec was there to see if there were any lessons to be learned from the UK's management of the COVID-19 pandemic, which left the country with one of the highest death rates for the disease worldwide. There are many, but they are for others to judge.
Butler, however, touched on a subject we've been covering at The Reg for some years. She also asked about links between Palantir and Faculty, the AI company which worked with the Vote Leave campaign supported by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Hancock didn't know if he was aware of any links there either.
