Palantir is a US-based data analytics firm specialising in AI technologies which are commonly used by states for mass surveillance, AI-assisted weaponry/warfare and predictive policing. In 2023 Palantir was awarded a £330 million contract with the NHS to build the Federated Data Platform (FDP) in trusts across England.

Palantir’s direct involvement in human rights abuses and crimes against humanity makes it a wholly unacceptable and unsuitable partner for the NHS:

• Palantir provided software to the US military for their wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. Palantir currently provides software to the US and Israeli military for their war on Iran and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
• The US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq led to the deaths of estimated 600,000 Iraqi people, and both were widely condemned as illegal wars of aggression.
• Palantir have openly and proudly provided their software to Israel’s military during the genocide being committed against the Palestinian people of Gaza. Both the genocide and Palantir’s facilitating and potentiating role therein is unequivocally proven by reports from the UN and multiple human rights organisations.
  • Via multiple UN reports on Gaza the Palantir-assisted IDF have been proven to systematically target healthcare institutions (hospitals, cancer centres, children’s hospitals and maternity specialist units, IVF clinics).
  • The Palantir-assisted IDF have also been proven to systematically target healthcare workers – at least 1,700 have been killed since Oct. 2023 at an average rate of more than two healthcare staff killed every day.
  • This targeting includes ‘double/triple strikes’, in which an already-bombed area is bombed once or even twice more after a calculated delay. The delay allows emergency workers just enough time to arrive at the scene before a subsequent strike kills both them and the patients as they administer life-saving treatment.
  • This, alongside the systematic starvation by blocking aid routes and systematic targeting of vital infrastructure (water, sanitation) has led to one of the highest proportions of civilian deaths in recorded modern warfare.
• Palantir’s software Maven Smart System was used by the US military to enable strikes against Iran in Operation Epic Fury. On the very first day of the operation, the US military triple-struck a primary school, killing 156 people - 120 of which were schoolchildren.
• Palantir’s software is used both indirectly and directly by Immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) in the US to track and deport migrants. While providing software for ICE’s systems directly, the software has also used personal healthcare data to enable raids which tear thousands of families apart and have been known to target unaccompanied children. ICE have been condemned by the UN and accused of torture and forced disappearance by Amnesty international.
• Palantir have developed systems used for mass surveillance, racial profiling and racist predictive policing – technologies proven by experts to entrench and deepen existing systemic biases. In the US and in Germany, there have been legal challenges raised against Palantir’s use of sensitive personal data for these means.

This demonstrates complete dissonance from and disregard for the ethics which must exist in our public services - healthcare most of all.

Here are four further reasons why you should be concerned about Palantir’s £330 million contract with NHS England:

1. Patient safety and data security is under serious threat

Experts have raised multiple concerns about data security in Palantir's FDP, namely how the information Palantir will have access to can be exploited via the ‘drag and drop’ capabilities of individual data across Palantir systems - for example healthcare data being used to enable profiling of characteristics (health and social care data in theory contains all protected human characteristics). Such profiling could facilitate deportations as has already been done in the US by ICE. This will deepen already-existing healthcare inequalities and potentiate patients’ fears of accessing healthcare.

Palantir’s employees have already been shown to have further access to identifiable data than was previously acknowledged or agreed.

Patients will have no say in this as there is no way for an individual to opt out of sharing data - this power lies with ICBs and GP practices.

!!!CLICK HERE for a template letter to send to your GP practice demanding they update their ‘data sharing agreements’ to prevent integration of your data with the FDP! This will start being shared from OCTOBER 2026, SO ACT NOW!

Health workers and their unions have called Palantir an "unacceptable choice of partner" for the NHS.

2. Unsuitable and poor quality software is being forced on NHS Trusts - with false positive data used in reports

Multiple NHS executives have said that Palantir's tech will be worse than systems already in place or built in-house.

Intentionally misleading data to show supposed benefits of the FDP has been used incredibly commonly: by politicians; by Palantir employees; and by talking heads in media articles throughout an aggressive PR campaign.

The data used (which often relies on less than a handful of hospitals nationally) has been demonstrated to be over-estimated, hand-picked and misleading, with NHS England forced to admit this themselves – making NHS England subject to an investigation by the Office of Statistics Regulation.

The fallacies with data and shady conflicts of interest around the signing of the contract are far too numerous to list in one petition. CLICK HERE for further reading on this.

3. It will be expensive for our local NHS organisations, and there are significant conflicts of interest within NHS leadership

Despite the government already paying for the contract local hospitals still face eye watering costs to adopt it locally. According to HSJ the FDP will cost local trusts over £1 billion to implement. A Financial Times article has found that huge hidden costs exist for implementation of software.

DHSC documents reveal that between 2023 and 2025 a number of trusts have received huge sums of money to facilitate the FDP rollout, including trusts which are then held up (falsely, as previously shown) as Palantir success stories:

Chelsea and Westminster Hospitals received an extra £3 million to facilitate rollout of the FDP. Matthew Swindells is the disgraced ex-chair of Chelsea and Westminster trust who worked for Global Counsel (the lobbying organisation made famous by Peter Mandelson) and had a role on the Palantir health advisory board from 2019-2022 - the very same timespan in which Palantir gained the NHS contract. At this time he was deputy chief exec of NHS England.

University Hospitals Leicester received £2.75 million from DHSC to facilitate “the procurement of the federated data platform”. The trust, however, did not declare this in FOIs about the initial or additional cost of the rollout.

4. It is a leap towards privatisation and vendor lock-in within the NHS

Palantir values profit over patient care. Palantir's founder, Peter Thiel, has repeatedly expressed contempt for the NHS and the British public's affection for it. He has said that we should “rip the [NHS] from the ground.”

Palantir’s marketing and procurement strategy is one of blatant vendor lock-in. Via a ‘land and expand’ strategy they get a foot in the door with a lowball offer (Palantir initially got a COVID track and trace contract for ONE POUND), before ripping systems apart and making them entirely dependent on Palantir’s own software (which is never open-source, and only compatible with other Palantir software).

It is for this reason that thousands upon thousands of highly-skilled NHS data analysts across the country have been made redundant in massive job cuts and replaced by Palantir’s own employees.

It is obvious then how dangerous the prospect of vendor lock-in with Palantir is – already having access to contracts with the MoD and the Met Police, their aim is a state run entirely by Palantir. A former health secretary has been quoted as saying “My worry about the Federated Data Platform wasn’t Palantir winning contracts, it was Palantir winning all the contracts”.

The NHS is not safe in Palantir's hands.

There is a ‘break clause’ present in the current Palantir contract which the government can choose to activate. Activating this clause has been recommended by the parliamentary Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.

If activated, the Palantir contract would expire in February 2027. If not, the contract would be extended for an undetermined amount of time. The decision-making process will be taking place in the Autumn and Winter of 2026.

There is therefore no doubt that the UK government should choose to activate this clause and break ties with Palantir.

This mass petition is a crucial step in demanding that North Yorkshire and Humber ICB takes action. Action taken by ICBs around the country will influence the UK government's decision. Please sign below.

For a separate tool from the national campaign which individually contacts your MP, GP and local ICB all in one click regarding the contract’s upcoming break clause, CLICK HERE!!