“When states transfer more power to private entities, the public loses. The government becomes a body designed to service the needs and interests of profit-seeking private entities rather than its citizens. Worse, citizens lose much of their power to hold governments accountable: the government abdicates and transfers responsibility to private actors against which citizens have fewer rights.”[1] This piece examines the creeping infrastructure of AI-powered surveillance in the UK and its implications for the Prevent strategy’s pre-crime framework. Digital ID, Palantir and Oracle In January of this year, the UK government dropped its plans for a mandatory digital ID. This came after almost 3 million signatures on a parliamentary petition opposing digital IDs.[2] Several corporations were in talks of implementing the digital ID apparatus. Palantir Technologies, named after the all-seeing stone in The Lord of the Rings,[3] dropped out of the bid back in October, citing a lack of public […]