Research note. ‘Introducing MI5’s “data-washing exercise”’

ABSTRACT Peter Gill asks if technology can solve MI5’s problem ‘not of determining “unknown unknowns” but, rather, identifying the very few tens from thousands of “knowns” who might attack at very short notice?’ MI5’s ‘data-washing exercise’ (‘Operation CLEMATIS’) could be the solution to this problem, but it also raises ethical questions. The data-washing exercise is a ‘process devised by MI5 to identify activity of renewed intelligence interest conducted by closed SOIs [Subjects of Interest], using targeted data exploitation and other automated techniques’. It succeeded in identifying Salman Abedi, the Manchester Arena bomber, ‘as one of a small number of individuals, out of a total of more than 20,000 closed SOIs, who merited further examination’. A meeting, scheduled before the attack, was arranged for 31 May 2017 to consider Abedi’s case. Unfortunately, the attack happened on 22 May.