George Kerevan: How secure is our census data if handed to private interests?

That said, I’ve another good reason for being happy I don’t have to fill in my census form: I don’t trust the company in charge of handling the information. The data collection for the 2022 census has been farmed out by National Records of Scotland (NRC) to a London-based company called CACI UK. In fact, CACI ran the data collection for the last Scottish census back in 2011. Why be worried?

CACI stands for Consolidated Analysis Centre, Incorporated. A name that anodyne should ring alarm bells. And alarmed you should be. For CACI is one of the shadowy private information contractors that work for America’s intelligence community, the Pentagon and Homeland Security. Welcome to Spook Central. Of course, the boss of CACI’s London subsidiary, Greg Bradford, will tell you their bit of the company has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence-gathering. Even if this was technically true, it is wholly misleading.

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Mr Bradford is a former officer in the US military. The CACI’s US website says he reports directly to John S Mengucci, the company’s CEO in Arlington, Virginia. Which suggests Mr Bradford is well-versed in the requirements of the so-called Patriot Act which compels American companies to disclose data to the US government should it be demanded, even if that data is collected and stored outside the United States. Both the British and Scottish governments deny this is legally possible with UK census data. They claim that your personal data is handled only by British contractors and by staff with a top-secret security clearance. But ask yourself two questions. First, would the British and Scottish authorities let a Chinese company handle the census work under the same rules? You can bet that even if the Chinese firm swore on a stack of bibles it would not take a peek at the census data, its bid would be ruled out of court. Secondly, do we really trust a company working in the main for US intelligence to abide by British law, if push comes to shove?

Of course, CACI might be run by paragons of democracy and the rule of law. Let’s put that to the test, shall we? CACI was founded back in 1962 as a spin-off from the notorious RAND Corporation, the Cold War think tank that theorised how to fight an all-out nuclear conflict against the Soviets. Think Dr Strangelove. CAIC began as a software company providing tech and solutions for the US military and intelligence agencies. It soon branched out into intelligence gathering – and not just the electronic sort. One of its subsidiaries was involved in questioning Iraqi prisoners in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.

In 2008, a number of former detainees at Abu Ghraib filed suit against CACI, claiming that employees of a CACI subsidiary had abetted in their torture to secure information. This included beatings, electric-shock treatment, sleep deprivation, and sexual humiliation. Among those suing CACI is Salah al-Ejaili, a journalist for Al Jezeera, who was reporting on the aftermath of a bomb attack when he was rounded up by US soldiers and driven to Abu Ghraib for interrogation. CACI strenuously denies the charges but admits its staff were at the prison.

An official investigation by US major general Antonio Taguba found that “sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses” were inflicted on detainees at Abu Ghraib. Several US soldiers were court martialled as a result. But they testified it was CACI interrogators who had told them what to do. It is conceivable that in the chaos inside Abu Ghraib, CACI operatives ventured beyond company orders. However, CACI has fought a long, tenacious legal battle to avoid responsibility – as only a company with $6 billion annual revenues and massive profits of $1.9bn can manage.

But let’s give CACI the benefit of the doubt. Let’s pass over the fact that the Scottish Government is comfortable with hiring a US company that makes a staggering rate of return on sales of 33%. Instead, look at who works for CACI. Last year the company hired Donald Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, Daniel Walsh, as its senior vice president in charge of getting more business from the US defence and security complex. This January, CACI appointed Michael Daniels as its new chairman. Daniels has acted as an advisor to the US National Security Council and worked previously for DARPA, America’s main military research outfit.

Other board members include the former commander of Nato’s southern forces; a clutch of former top CIA officers including the head of the Clandestine Service, which led the Agency’s “operational response” to 9-11, and the former head of information security (or busting it!) for America’s equivalent of GCHQ.

THAT, dear reader, is not a commercial board. That is a mini, private spy agency all on its own. These are the folk handling Scotland’s census returns. What possible interest could they have in such a small piece of business? Of course, CACI exists to make money – pots of it. Which means it is also in the business of selling data to commercial outlets (and I presume political ones). The website of CACI’s British operation gleefully offers commercial customers the following: “Using our powerful geodemographic segmentations of the UK’s population, we can provide an assortment of demographic datasets, area reports and mapping solutions to help both commercial and public sector clients understand customers, locations and communities.” So CACI would have absolutely no interest in selling your census data!

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I know some of you will think I am being paranoid and inventing conspiracy theories. My point is less manic. I am merely saying that we live in a world dominated – economically, culturally and politically – by the internet and big-data manipulation. That this sphere is increasingly controlled by big tech companies that are beyond national regulation. And that too many of these companies are tied into the US and Israeli intelligence communities. Somewhere, sometime this is going to come back and bite us.

CACI is a key player in this dangerous nexus. Yet despite employing a massive workforce of 22,000 employees worldwide, CACI remains virtually anonymous to most folk here in the United Kingdom and Scotland. We might start by addressing that fact. I suggest that the incoming Scottish Parliament holds hearings into the CACI contract signed by National

Records of Scotland, as a way of reassuring ourselves that our personal data is secure during and after the census gathering. Please note: MSPs should question key CACI bosses from America, not just the local UK underlings.

There’s a lesson here for Scotland post-independence. We are a small nation surrounded by large, arrogant neighbours. That includes America and England, as well as Russia and China. My conclusion: we had better start building our own data management and security capacity rather than simply contracting out. We have a year till the 2022 Scottish census. That might be a good place to begin.