Faculty Science Ltd

Founded	2014; 10 years ago (2014) (as ASI Data Science)
Founder	Andy Brookes Angie Ma Marc Warner
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Key people	Marc Warner (founder, and CEO) Ben Warner
Website	faculty.ai

Faculty Science Ltd (formerly ASI Data Science and Advanced Skills Initiative Ltd.) is a British technology company based in London, founded in 2014, by Marc Warner. The company is most notable for its close links to the Conservative Party (UK), Dominic Cummings, Vote Leave, and Cambridge Analytica's parent company SCL Elections.^[1][2][3]

The company was founded in 2014, by Marc Warner, Se Miao Angie Ma, and Daniel James Hulme. While Warner and Ma remain at the company, Hulme resigned from the company in 2016 under mysterious circumstances and is no longer mentioned as a founder on any company materials.^[4][5]

The company was a supplier to the Vote Leave campaign during the 2016 United Kingdom EU referendum.^[6] Between 2017-2018, Carole Cadwalladr exposed Faculty's (then ASI Data Science) involvement in the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was reported that "Dom's hired astrophysicists" (see Dominic Cummings) at ASI Data Science were part of an intricate web performing work for Vote Leave, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, and Cambridge Analytica.^[7] The Guardian reported in 2020 that Faculty had received £260,000 from Dominic Cummings personal firm to work on Vote Leave.^[8]

Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, ASI Data Science rebranded as Faculty in 2019.

Following the companies involvement with Vote Leave, Marc Warner has spoken publicly about the benefits of Brexit and the advantages to his AI industry.^[9]

In February 2018, the Home Office and ASI developed a terrorist content blocking tool that claimed to identify 94% of Daesh propaganda, aiding in preventing it from being uploaded to the Internet.^[10] Despite considerable hype by Faculty, the tool was widely criticised and it was reported by Wired (magazine) that Daesh could easily dodge the tool^[11]. In 2019, it was then reported by the Financial Times that the tool had not been adopted by any companies, even after it had been offered free of charge.^[12]

During the coronavirus pandemic, Faculty and the CIA-backed Palantir carried out data analysis work for the UK government.^[13] The Guardian reported in May 2020 that Faculty had won seven government contracts in 18 months at a time when Warner's brother Ben Warner had gone to work with Dominic Cummings as a data scientist.^[14]

The newspaper noted that a source at the UK's Department of Health had described Marc Warner dropping Cummings’ name in his meetings, saying the chief executive of Faculty gave the impression he had the personal support of the prime minister’s chief adviser. “It felt like he was bragging about it,” the senior source said, saying Warner would casually tell officials: “Don’t worry, I’ll text Dom,” or “I’m talking to Dom later.”^[15][16]

The same month it was reported that Faculty had secured a £400,000 contract with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to "analyse social media data, utility bills and credit rating scores"^[17] in order to "identify trends, and then develop "interactive dashboards" to inform policymakers".^[18] According to The Guardian, the contract was awarded directly to Faculty without it being put out to tender for other firms to bid on it.^[17] Theodore Agnew, the Cabinet Minister with responsibility for promoting the use of technology in public services had a shareholding in the company worth £90,000 as of May 2020^[update] raising questions of potential conflict of interest.^[16]

• Official website