More than 200,000 people have called on ministers to scrap the deal with Palantir, citing public concern about the US tech company’s role in the NHS, police, military and councils.
Two petitions have attracted 229,000 signatures, one calling on the government to end all public contracts with the company, whose software is used by Donald Trump’s ICE immigration enforcement program and the Israeli military, and another on the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to cancel its £330m patient data contract with the NHS.
This week, the Guardian revealed that the Metropolitan Police was in talks to use the company’s AI to analyze sensitive intelligence, and Palantir published a manifesto that one MP described as “a supervillain clash”.
But the tech company is pushing back against a multi-pronged campaign in Britain challenging its work over claims made widely on social media by Green Party leader Zach Polanski and legal campaigner Jolyon Maugham, which this week launched an investigation into a podcast at Palantir. The Liberal Democrats are also calling for the NHS contract to be scrapped and new contracts to be blocked.
Matthew McGregor, chief executive of 38 Degrees, the campaigning organization that promoted the petitions, said: “Nearly a quarter of a million people have said loud and clear: they do not want a company like Palantir, whose technology is used by ICE and the Israeli military, to have access to their most sensitive data.”
Referring to a manifesto published by the company’s US operation over the weekend, which said “hard power” is needed for free and democratic societies to prevail, he added: “The government needs to act fast and trigger the break clauses on these lucrative contracts now.”
Palantir has £600 million worth of contracts with UK public bodies and could soon expand, with Scotland Yard in talks to use the company’s AI technology for automated intelligence analysis for criminal investigations. If a deal is confirmed, it would represent a significant expansion of Palantir’s involvement in UK law enforcement. It also has a £240m contract with the Ministry of Defense and this week renewed a contract with Coventry City Council worth £750,000. He also has dealings with Bedfordshire Police and Leicestershire Police, among other constabularies.
Palantir’s UK chief executive, Louis Mosley, has been trying to deflect criticism of the company, sometimes using internet memes, in what has become a very public PR battle.
Maugham used social media to describe on the Good Law Project’s podcast “what happens when you take a company named after an Antichrist-obsessed billionaire and the evil-seeing stone in The Lord of the Rings and you put them at the heart of the NHS”.
Mosley responded by posting a meme from the US sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, suggesting the critics were engaging in a conspiracy theory.
He also posted on X: “Note to diary: Box @ZachPolanski [Polanski’s actual X account is @ZackPolanski] Tuesday, Thursday Jolyon Maugham boat. Leaving Friday open if @EdwardJDavey likes a fencing match.
Polanski’s campaign against Palantir has been equally vigorous, but not always accurate. This week it launched an online video falsely claiming that Peter Thiel was its chief executive and calling it a spyware company. Mosley challenged this and called it “technically defamatory” because spyware is illegal malicious software that enters a user’s computer, but added “don’t worry, we’re not suing”. Thiel, a Trump-supporting tech billionaire, co-founded Palantir.
“We have an opportunity to drive this dangerous company out of our NHS and out of all our public services,” Polanski said. Ministers should listen to the public and end this terrible deal now.
Palantir says its software helps increase the number of NHS operations, shortens the time it takes to diagnose cancer, keeps Royal Navy ships at sea longer, and protects women and children from domestic violence.
