Why the hell...
...was a project involving personal details of UK citizens handed over to a US company in the first place?
That is all.
Raytheon and the Home Office are in talks as the department tries to stop the company suing for unfair breach of contract over its sacking from the e-borders programme last year. At the time, the e-borders agency said it had no confidence in the company. Immigration minister Damian Green said: "The government is determined to …
Why the hell...
.was a project involving personal details of UK citizens handed over to a US company in the first place?
Because it worked so well when Lockheed Martin handled the national census this time round.
And the last time round as well.
(HMG. "What's that you say? The PATRIOT act give UG govt departments unlimited to any data held by a US based company. What's "The PATRIOT" Act?")
It's been handled by US companies a *lot* longer than that.
CACI for example (who produce the *highly useful* ACORN geodemographic database[1]. Which significantly reduces the amount of junk mail you get for stuff you're never, ever going to be interested in)
[1] Data analysed and available based on classifying postcodes - individuals aren't identifiable.
"Data analysed and available based on classifying postcodes - individuals aren't identifiable."
Quite true. But the information is *derived* from the post code data base. While it could be brought down to the individual it's not delivered by default.
Unlike the UK census which *is* handed to a US company in detail (The UK census used to operate down to the *household*, now it's down to the individual).
From what I saw of this crowd if would be an outrage if they were awarded another penny of taxpayer's money. While there were some reasonably capable subcontractors, the clear impression was that no one in charge had the faintest idea how to design and deliver a project at this scale.
I remember asking a top design dude what he thought his job was, expecting him to refer to the establishment of common technical policy, processes and the like, and he replied that it was to "approve every change" being made by development teams (including subcontractors). Unbelievable.