A new system from a specialist AI firm will be deployed to help track security dangers posed to information and operations, as well as spotting online threats made to individuals

Parliament has invested a six-figure sum in an open-source software tool to help identify threats made to peers and members and other security risks.

A newly published commercial notice reveals that, around the end of March, the Houses of Commons and Lords entered into an initial two-year agreement with US-based software firm Seerist.

According to the company’s website, its platform complements artificial intelligence capability with “expert analysis, [and] delivers actionable intelligence, helping risk professionals and security teams forecast, analyse, and respond effectively to emerging threats”.

The procurement notice reveals that Westminster wishes to deploy the technology to help track cyberthreats, as well as potential information leaks and direct threats made against individual parliamentarians. Monitoring will take place across both established media channels and individual posts on social networks.

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“The authority requires an open-source exploitation tool which will monitor news media, social media and the wider internet for security risks, including threats made to MPs and parliament, MPs’ personal data exposed online and other security related information, current and historic,” the document adds.

The deal will be worth £341,110 to Seerist, once VAT is included, and offers the option of a one-year extension, taking the potential end date to 2028.

The chosen provider won the contract following a bidding process in which three “previously invited suppliers [were asked] to participate in a restricted tender process for the provision of an open source software exploitation tool”.

In 2023, the Scottish Parliament began offering its members the opportunity to sign up for access to a monitoring tool tracking potential threats made against them online.

Meanwhile, in late 2021, the UK government spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on AI-powered software to detect and report online death threats made against “named high-profile individuals involved in the Covid-19 vaccine rollout”.