British Spies Trust Amazon With Their Secrets
The British three spy agencies, GCHQ, MI5 and MI6, have awarded a contract to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host classified material. MI5 and MI6 will also use the AWS system to store secret data with the aim is to increase the use of data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for espionage.
The deal, estimated to be worth £500 million to £1 billion over the next decade, was signed earlier this year and the cloud storage system will make it easier for spies to share information from abroad and improve the use of voice recognition and other technologies.
GCHQ had supported the procurement of a high-security cloud system, which would be used by its sister services, MI5 and MI6. Other government departments, including the Ministry of Defence, will also use the system during joint operations.
GCHQ has been using basic forms of AI, such as translation technology, for years but is stepping up its use, partly in response to the use of AI by hostile states and partly due to the data explosion that makes it effective. In February, British spies at GCHQ said they had fully embraced artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover patterns in global data to counter hostile disinformation and catch child abusers.
The contract with Amazon is likely to ignite concerns over sovereignty because the Britian’s most secret data will be hosted by a single US technology company although GCHQ has declined comment on reports about its relationships with suppliers.
Gus Hosein, the executive director of Privacy International, told the Financial T there were many things parliament, regulators and the public needed to know about the deal. “This is yet another worrying public-private partnership, agreed in secret,” he said. “If this contract goes through, Amazon will be positioned as the go-to cloud provider for the world’s intelligence agencies. Amazon has to answer for itself which countries’ security services it would be prepared to work for.”
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