Palantir already have sucked up our personal data, but military investment is so worrying:
Palantir and your NHS health data: a cause for concern?
By Martin Franklin
In 2023, the Tory government awarded a £330 million contract for an NHS data platform to Palantir, a US-based surveillance and military technology firm. The award was made without full, open competition, raising questions about transparency and accountability in the procurement process and echoing how some contracts were awarded during the Covid crisis. In a similar manner, Palantir was recently given a £240 million contract with the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Palantir specialises in data analytics systems, surveillance and AI military technologies. Its clients include the US military and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the UK Ministry of Defence, and the Israeli Government, supporting the latter’s operations in the occupied Palestinian territories.
MPs raise concerns over Palantir after Swiss army ‘could not rule out data leak’
Defence Secretary John Healey (left) and the CEO of software company Palantir Technologies Alex Karp sign a £1.5bn investment deal at Wellington Conference Room, Horse Guards, Whitehall, London, September 18, 2025
UK MPs have raised concerns about the government’s contracts with Palantir after an investigation published in Switzerland highlighted allegations about the suitability and security of its products.
The investigation by the Zurich-based research collective WAV and the Swiss online magazine Republik details Palantir’s efforts, over the course of seven years, to sell its products to Swiss federal agencies.
Palantir is a US company that provides software to integrate and analyse data scattered across different systems, such as in the health service. It also provides artificial intelligence-enabled military targeting systems.
The investigation cites an expert report, internal to the Swiss army, that assessed Palantir’s status as a US company meant there was a possibility sensitive data shared with it could be accessed by the US government and intelligence services.
British MPs have voiced concerns over the US data company in light of the report.
“Palantir … is an organisation that the British government, in terms of the NHS, in terms of contracts, should stay very far away from … I think the Swiss army is right to be suspicious,” said the Labour MP Clive Lewis.
The government “needs to undertake transparent due diligence” on the conduct of Palantir and other big tech companies, said Rachael Maskell, the MP for York Central.
Lord Mandelson brokered the meeting between Sir Keir and the firm, ahead of Palantir winning a £240million data analytics contract with the Ministry of Defence.
Downing Street has refused to say if Sir Keir knew at the time of his visit to Palantir’s offices whether Palantir was a client of Global Counsel.
Global Counsel was co-founded by Lord Mandelson and has worked with a roster of clients including Palantir, GSK, Vodafone, OpenAI, TikTok and the Premier League.
The lobbying firm recently announced it had cut ties with Lord Mandelson in the wake of fresh revelations about the peer’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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