Is Britain surrendering sovereignty to Palantir?

It’s not hard to decipher why a tech company would choose to name itself after the magical crystal balls from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Its logo of a circle floating above a V-shaped plinth represents one of the all-seeing Palantir stones from the sci-fi trilogy. According to Tolkien, those manipulating a Palantir had to “possess great strength of will and of mind” to direct the stone’s gaze to see any part of the world. Only the best and brightest could wield its strength.  

On Tuesday night at The Conduit, Andrew Feinstein, Executive Director at Shadow World Investigations, joined Donald Campbell, Director of Advocacy at Foxglove, for a discussion with journalist Abla Kandalaft to explore the tech company’s place in the UK public sector.

The evening began with some background context: Palantir is often thought of in the same breath as other big tech companies like Google, Meta, Tesla, and Amazon. What sets it apart is the product isn’t something used by the general public. Palantir is a software company that gathers information on its platforms to conduct data analysis. Its clients are governments looking to save money, whether that’s through tracking migrants in America for ICE or facilitating Isreal’s drone operation over Gaza.  The company does this by combining everything from social media posts to battlefield information to create a clear picture for the end user.

Three years ago, Palantir won a £330mn contract with the UK’s NHS to build the Federated Data Platform (FDP) – a bold project to collate health information across the national health service. During the pandemic, the government realised that too much of the NHS’s data was fragmented between trusts, thereby creating inefficiencies in vaccine rollout and PPE procurement. The idea behind the FDP is to connect separate patient data to improve patient care, reduce waiting times, and bolster staff efficiencies. These are all good things that could help the NHS serve patients and staff.

But there are issues. Campbell noted for example the circumstances under which Palantir won the contract. In 2018, Palantir hired Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm Global Counsel, which organised dinners for the company’s executives with British policymakers. A few years later, the company signed a contract with the UK government for only £1 to create the Covid-19 Data Store to integrate health data in order to track the spread of the virus. It has been suggested that the low fee was a way for Palantir to gain a foothold in the UK. Six years later and Palantir now has contracts with the Financial Conduct Authority, the Ministry of Defence, and police forces across the country.

Campbell believes this “land and expand” tactic is a way to stomp out competition. Campbell cited a Wall Street Journal op-ed where CEO Alex Karp declared that “competition is for losers.” The problem with this land and expand strategy, he said, is that once Palantir’s software platforms dominate one sector, it becomes very difficult to give contracts to other tech companies with different platforms.

Campbell argued that if the government continues to hand over all its data to a private company, it raises questions around the limits of a country’s sovereignty. Some in power are beginning to raise similar questions. In June the UK’s Science, Innovation and Technology Committee issued a report warning that Palantir’s increasing presence in the public sector is an “unacceptable point of weakness.” Last month Palantir said it plans to sue London mayor, Sadiq Khan, after he blocked a contract between the tech company and the Met Police on the grounds Palantir breached procurement rules. And France’s domestic intelligence service has also announced it will cut ties with Palantir in favour of a domestic company in an effort to avoid “strategic dependency” on a foreign company.

But sovereignty isn’t the only issue. In the past three years it’s hard to gauge how Palantir has significantly improved the NHS with its software platform. According to analysis from The Health Foundation, a think tank, hospitals using Palantir’s discharge tool have noticed no significant improvement in performance. The NHS England website boasts that two-thirds of NHS trusts are “live” on the Palantir platform, but dozens of trusts that say they are using the platform haven’t logged in to the FDP app in the past year.

Handing over a treasure trove of NHS data to a private company is questionable, but added to those concerns are its co-founder’s “controversial” views on society and politics. In a 2009 essay for The Cato Institute, co-founder Peter Thiel wrote that he no longer believes democracy to be compatible with freedom.  

Palantir’s reputation and its work are creating a serious problem for public trust. The Science, Innovation and Technology committee’s report called for the government to exercise a February 2027 break clause in the contract and then either look for a UK-based alternative or develop a government replacement. In return, Palantir’s UK and Europe chief, Louis Mosley, has insisted that the tech company has created efficiencies in the NHS and has accused critics of choosing “ideology over patient safety.”  

When asked how to restore tech sovereignty, Campbell  proposed that the UK government doesn’t have to rely on American companies to build data platforms: Greater Manchester built an integrated care board with the help of British universities, NHS clinicians and domestic tech firms, for example. It is also the only trust in England to refuse uptake of the FDP, concluding its own data platform is better. 

Even if Palantir’s software improved the NHS, questions would remain about what Britain is willing to sacrifice in return for a few efficiencies. Governments have always relied on private contractors to build roads, ships and hospitals. But the debate here is whether the UK wants to empower a private company to become the operating system for the state. In a digital age, true sovereignty means retaining the capacity to build, control and, when necessary, replace the systems that hold the country’s most valuable information.

Note: This event was held in partnership with The Canary. You can watch the livestream here.