Contracts with Dataminr

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Ministry of Defence should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Ministry of Defence,

I'm writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) to ask that you please disclose to me the user services agreements and copies of the contracts between yourselves and the company dataminr.

If the contracts are not available, I would like a summary of the work undertaken by dataminr.

I would like to know if dataminr is utilising the twitter firehose as part of it's service with you, and if a DPIA was completed for the work undertaken.

I'd also like to know, as I'm aware of how the software operates, which news events have been tracked using the software. This does not need to be an extensive explanation that would endanger operations, but rather to satisfy the clear public interest in this matter. Namely, if protests have been targeted. BLM, XR, Insulate Britain (or other environmental activists), "antifa", anti police violence, or anti arms protests specificially.

I'd also like to know if any further agreements not published on contracts finder exist between the ministry of defence and dataminr please, or if the 2 contracts listed on contracts finder represent use across the Ministry.

Please list any and all exemptions and full reasoning for applying them, should ny apply, and please respond as promptly as possible, or at the very least withing the 20 day legal timeframe as laid out in the FOI Act.

Yours faithfully,

Max Colbert
The Citizens

ukstratcomdd-secretariatgpmbx@mod.gov.uk, Ministry of Defence

Dear Mr Colbert

Your request has been logged under our reference FOI2022/04511 and the
target date for response is 9th May 2022.

Yours sincerely

Defence Digital Secretariat

ukstratcomdd-secretariatgpmbx@mod.gov.uk, Ministry of Defence

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Colbert

In accordance with the attached letter, the date that the response is due
for your request, FOI2022/04511, has been changed to 6 June 2022

Kind Regards

Defence Digital Secretariat

ukstratcomdd-secretariatgpmbx@mod.gov.uk, Ministry of Defence

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Colbert,

In accordance with the attached letter, the date that the response is due
for your request, FOI2022/04511, has been changed to 27 June 2022.

Kind Regards,

Defence Digital Secretariat

ukstratcomdd-secretariatgpmbx@mod.gov.uk, Ministry of Defence

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Colbert

In accordance with the attached letter, the date that the response is due
for your request, FOI2022/04511, has been changed to 18th July 2022

Kind Regards

Defence Digital Secretariat

ukstratcomdd-secretariatgpmbx@mod.gov.uk, Ministry of Defence

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Colbert,

In accordance with the attached letter, the date that the response is due
for your request, FOI2022/04511, has been changed to 8 August 2022.

Kind Regards,

Defence Digital Secretariat

ukstratcomdd-secretariatgpmbx@mod.gov.uk, Ministry of Defence

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Colbert

In accordance with the attached letter, the date that the response is due
for your request, FOI2022/04511, has been changed to 29 August 2022

Kind Regards

Defence Digital Secretariat

ukstratcomdd-secretariatgpmbx@mod.gov.uk, Ministry of Defence

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Colbert,

Please find attached our response to your enquiry.

Regards,

Defence Digital Secretariat

Dear Ministry of Defence,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Ministry of Defence's handling of my FOI request 'Contracts with Dataminr'.

I'm requesting an internal review of this request, as I believe that the public interest, given the history of dataminr in that its tools have been used to monitor innocent protestors, and the series of scandals that have dogged the company since its inception, greatly outweigh the commercial and national security interest exemptions placed upon this request, most specifically with relation to the MoD using the twitter firehose service.

I've laid out a timeline of scandals and matters of interest involving this entity below, for you consideration:

DATAMINR is a firm which, in an exceptionally rare instance for such an entity, is granted full access to Twitter's firehose service, to monitor tweets, geolocation, and other data sourced from across the internet, which it then feeds back to it's clients, as well as sharing with third parties. It's often deployed in news rooms, corporations, and by Police and intelligence services.

In May 2016, Twitter, who used to hold a stake in dataminr (along with the venture capital arm of the CIA - In-Q-Tel), blocked US spy agencies from accessing the service. This was widely reported at the time by both left and right wing press outlets (I've included links from the Mail and Guardian below). The reason for their removal from the Twitter/DATAMINR service was that an ACLU investigation found that fusion centers could access the monitoring software to target activists, protestors, and even journalists, and to racially profile people that it deemed "suspicious".

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-techno...

The fusion centers are centres which collect intelligence on current events and have been used to target protestors, journalists, and others, as the Guardian pointed out "often innocent people" - those not suspected of being involved in criminal activity, prompting DATAMINR in 2016 to cut off access to its service to US intelligence after it was revealed that these agencies (including the FBI and CIA) had access to DATAMINR's "geospatial analysis application", facilitating tracking of locations, keywords, searches, and billions of tweets from individuals or persons of specific demographics. DATAMINR itself admitted that its software could be used to track protests.

Use of the software however was not limited to 2016, but rather ongoing into at least 2020, where once again DATAMINR's software hit the headlines. The software in this instance was used by law enforcement, to monitor Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, and tipped off police to whereabouts and actions of protestors (again many of whom were peaceful citizens expressing anger at lack of action taken to address ongoing police brutality in the country). Twitter had given assurances in 2016 that it would "no longer support direct access by fusion centers" to information such as tweet locations from one of it's "official partners" - DATAMINR.

However, an investigation by The Intercept which included interviews, public records requests, and company documents found that the company had persisted in enabling domestic surveillance, while this time managing to stay within the boundaries it had previously set out. [For instance, while not allowing police geospatial analysis privileges, if a person tags location in a tweet which is then picked up by the service, then the result is effectively the same while from a technical standpoint adhering to previous promises].

The investigation found that: 'Dataminr relayed tweets and other social media content about the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests directly to police, apparently across the country. In so doing, it used to great effect its privileged access to Twitter data — despite current terms of service that explicitly bar software developers “from tracking, alerting, or monitoring sensitive events (such as protests, rallies, or community organizing meetings)” via Twitter.'

A source with direct knowledge of the company even went as far as to say that their claims of not condoning or enabling surveillance were "bullshit" - and the company was reported to have been deployed on an almost nation wide level across the united states

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

Yours faithfully,

Max Colbert
The Citizens

CIO-FOI-IR (MULTIUSER), Ministry of Defence

Dear Mr Colbert,

Thank you for your email's dated 22 August 2022, requesting an internal review for FOI2022/04511.

The Department's target for completing internal reviews is 20 working days and we therefore aim to complete the review and respond to you by 20 September 2022. While we are working hard to achieve this, in the interests of providing you with a more realistic indication of when you should expect a response, we should advise that the majority are currently taking between 20 and 40 working days to complete.

The internal review that will involve a full, independent reconsideration of the handling of the Request for Information under the Freedom of Information Act as well as the final decision.

Yours sincerely,

MOD Information Rights Compliance Team

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Dear CIO-FOI-IR (MULTIUSER),

This is quite late now, is there a revised date for response?

Yours sincerely,

Max Colbert
The Citizens

CIO-FOI-IR (MULTIUSER), Ministry of Defence

Dear Mr Colbert,

 

We apologise that we were unable to provide our response to your complaint
within the forty working days suggested in our acknowledgment email. We
can advise that the delay in completing the review has been caused, in
part, by unexpected staff illness.

 

While we are still suffering some staff absences, we would like to assure
you that progress is being made and we are hopeful that we will be able to
provide our formal response to your request for review by no later than 17
February 2023.

 

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that may have been
caused by this delay.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

MOD Information Rights Compliance Team