Well being staff are urging NHS decision-makers to not signal contracts with controversial US information analytics agency Palantir, citing moral considerations round human rights and information privateness.
In 2023, Palantir gained a seven-year, £330m NHS England contract to ship the Federated Knowledge Platform (FDP), a nationwide system supposed to attach disparate healthcare information from throughout the NHS whereas sustaining safety and affected person privateness.
Whereas the system is just not but totally operational, many hospital trusts and built-in care boards (ICBs) have already signed up to make use of the platform.
Nevertheless, based on a report from well being justice group Medact – which has been backed by docs, legal professionals, sufferers and human rights organisations – the usage of Palantir software program all through the NHS, and significantly within the FDP, presents a spread of “severe dangers” to sufferers and healthcare organisations.
Highlighting how Palantir’s operations around the globe have allegedly contributed to “human rights abuses, warfare crimes, discriminatory policing practices and mass surveillance”, Medact stated the agency’s cosiness with regulation enforcement and border companies may result in “data-driven state abuses of energy” if individuals’s delicate well being info is shared with these our bodies.
“This report is worried that the FDP, by bringing collectively disparate well being datasets onto a single platform run by Palantir, may allow UK authorities departments, such because the House Workplace and police departments, to extra simply entry affected person information,” it stated.
Medact added that Palantir’s companies to different governments, together with in its contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have “concerned important cross-departmental information compiling and evaluation”, enabling information given to 1 authorities division to be repurposed for profiling and surveillance by others.
[We are] involved that the FDP, by bringing collectively disparate well being datasets onto a single platform run by Palantir, may allow UK authorities departments to extra simply entry affected person information Medact report
“In addition to the potential danger for a present or future UK authorities to aim to emulate US-style cross-governmental information sharing, there’s a severe danger of Palantir’s contract alienating sufferers most affected by well being inequalities as a consequence of this perceived danger,” stated Medact, including that throughout the pandemic, well being advocacy group Sufferers not Passports discovered that round 57% of migrants averted looking for healthcare as a result of they have been involved about being reported to or recognized by the House Workplace.
Medact stated it’s involved that this case will probably be made worse by the involvement of Palantir, given its enthusiasm for working with ICE and the prevailing data-sharing agreements in place between the UK House Workplace and the NHS.
These considerations are compounded by the prospect of a possible Reform UK authorities, because the social gathering has already pledged to facilitate “mass deportations” if it wins energy.
In keeping with a Reform coverage doc printed in August 2025, titled Operation restoring justice, the social gathering is aiming to implement an “uncompromising authorized reset” and guarantees to “relentlessly determine and detain all unlawful migrants within the UK”. It acknowledged: “Utilizing powers granted by the brand new laws, it is going to robotically share information between the House Workplace, NHS, HMRC, DVLA, banks and the police.”
Alongside Palantir’s acknowledged intention to dominate nationwide software program provision within the US and allied international locations, in addition to its energetic contracts with UK police forces and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Medact warned that there’s a actual risk of its involvement undermining information privateness and public belief in UK healthcare establishments.
Policing and navy contracts
Exterior of its shut collaboration with ICE – which is at present engaged in aggressive mass deportation efforts throughout the US, utilizing unidentified masked brokers to conduct operations, and using fascist rhetoric in its communications and recruitment drives – Medact additionally highlighted how Palantir assists violent navy and policing establishments.
This consists of supplying software program to the US navy throughout its unlawful wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, offering police forces throughout the US and Europe with broadly critiqued digital “predictive policing” instruments, and supplying synthetic intelligence (AI) merchandise to the Israeli navy.
Storebrand Asset Administration, one of many largest asset managers within the Nordic area, divested its holding in Palantir in October 2024, stating that its analysis signifies that Palantir’s “AI-based predictive policing techniques” assist Israeli surveillance of Palestinians within the West Financial institution and Gaza.
Storebrand equally divested from IBM over its provide of biometric database applied sciences in Could 2024, citing the position the provider performs in sustaining unlawful Israeli settlements.
In June 2025, Francesca Albanese, the UN Particular Rapporteur on the scenario of human rights within the Palestinian territories, printed a report that accused tech companies of actively “aiding and abetting” Israel’s “crimes of apartheid and genocide” in opposition to Palestinians, particularly highlighting Palantir’s provide of varied information platforms and automatic decision-making techniques.
Given Palantir’s penchant for working with defence and policing organisations, Medact reiterated that the agency’s involvement within the FDP and different NHS techniques represents a conflict of values that might undermine public belief.
It added that Palantir can be “more likely to profit reputationally” from NHS contracts, by basically permitting the agency to launder its personal public picture by associating with a preferred establishment.
We argue that NHS England’s contract with Palantir is more likely to strengthen Palantir’s software program and repute as an organization. Given the extremely interoperable nature of Palantir’s completely different civil and navy merchandise, this might not directly outcome within the NHS contributing to the development of militarised expertise used to commit alleged human rights abuses Medact report
“We argue that NHS England’s contract with Palantir is more likely to strengthen Palantir’s software program and repute as an organization,” stated Medact. “Given the extremely interoperable nature of Palantir’s completely different civil and navy merchandise, this might not directly outcome within the NHS contributing to the development of militarised expertise used to commit alleged human rights abuses.”
Medact added that, given Palantir’s questionable observe report on surveillance and human rights around the globe, adopting its expertise may see hospital trusts, ICBs and NHS England fall foul of their very own moral procurement insurance policies.
It added that there’s a danger of trusts and ICBs being locked right into a single provider, lowering their “skill to switch to a unique provider or retain full autonomy over the code behind their information administration techniques”.
In February 2025, the NHS Chief Knowledge and Analytical Officer Community (CDAON) wrote an open letter to the chief digital and data officer, Ming Tang, detailing related objections to the FDP’s roll-out.
Particularly, the CDAON cited problems with public belief related to Palantir’s dealing with of delicate well being information, and highlighted that viable alternate options exist already.
“We have already got related instruments in use that presently exceed the aptitude and software of what the FDP is at present attempting to develop or roll out at a system degree,” they wrote.
Medact’s report has been despatched to decision-makers sitting throughout the NHS, together with belief boards, ICBs, well being scrutiny committees and the Well being Knowledge Governance Committee.
Suggestions and Palantir response
To alleviate the considerations recognized in its report, Medact has advisable that NHS decision-makers decline to implement the FDP or every other Palantir merchandise of their native information techniques, scrutinise their present contracts with the provider, and examine the feasibility of in-house or open supply alternate options.
Medact has known as for NHS England to instantly terminate its Palantir contract.
A spokesperson for Palantir stated the agency’s “software program is taking part in an essential position in enhancing affected person care – serving to to ship 100,000 further operations, a 12% discount in discharge delays and the elimination of 675,000 sufferers from ready lists”.
They added: “How that software program is used is totally underneath the management of the NHS, with information solely in a position to be processed in accordance with their strict directions.”
The spokesperson stated the agency additionally has “no intention of and no technique of utilizing the info in the best way that the Medact report is suggesting”, including that “to take action could be unlawful and in breach of contract”.
This consists of claiming that it’s “a matter of firm coverage” to not assist predictive policing functions, that it’s work with ICE is long-standing and dates again to the Obama administration, and that there are “complete” information processing safeguards and controls in place for the FDP.
“Palantir engineers are solely in a position to entry NHS information underneath the route of the info controllers. This solely takes place for acceptable engineering actions like information pipeline deployment and product assist duties,” the corporate stated.
“The expertise consists of granular entry controls and full auditability, making certain that people inside the establishments we serve can entry solely the data essential to carry out their roles. It additionally supplies a transparent, traceable report of who accessed particular information, after they accessed it, and for what goal.”
Palantir added that whereas it has not been concerned in essentially the most high-profile Israel Protection Forces (IDF) synthetic intelligence (AI) focusing on techniques, “we’re, nevertheless, very pleased with the work and assist we have now offered to Israel following the vicious assaults of October seventh”.
