You Can’t Be Told Who Supplies Tech To UK Government — Because It Might Embarrass Them
Home Office refuses FOI request for Vivace members because it might embarrass their shareholders
You might recall that a few months ago I wrote about a mysterious organisation called Vivace.
Vivace is a government-funded consortium of tech companies that provides the Home Office’s Accelerated Capability Environment (ACE). Once you wade past the jargon, the group provides private-sector technology in support of counter-terrorism and other “frontline security and public safety missions”.
As you may recall, the Home Office is none too keen to reveal which companies are part of Vivace or how much this all costs. We know that Vivace is led by QinetiQ and slides published on LinkedIn revealed other members (including Amazon Web Services, Thales and BAE) who are already benefitting from hugely lucrative government contracts, but nobody wanted to provide a definitive list of who’s taking public money and how much this venture costs the taxpayer.
Vivace isn’t a registered company whose accounts we can examine, and its shell of a website provides no further detail, so in May I sent the Home Office a freedom of information (FOI) request asking for:
