Palantir · Wired · United Kingdom · Wired
Palantir Contracts Have Become ‘An Unacceptable Point of Weakness,’ UK Politicians Warn
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A bipartisan group of UK politicians is sounding the alarm over the country's partnership with the data analytics company Palantir.
Key facts
- Since then, Palantir and its partners have won contracts worth a combined $750 million with the NHS and the Ministry of Defense, among others
- The UK government began to use Palantir’s technology in 2020 as it scrambled to map the spread of the Covid-19 virus and route medical equipment across the country
- The relationship has attracted increased scrutiny of late over the company’s work with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as the US and Israeli militaries
- In a report published Tuesday, the 11 members of Parliament’s Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee warned that the country’s ballooning reliance on Palantir’s technology “represents
Summary
In a report published Tuesday, the 11 members of Parliament’s Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee warned that the country’s ballooning reliance on Palantir’s technology “represents an unacceptable point of weakness” that could hand the company overwhelming bargaining power in future negotiations. “We know that with vendor lock-in, over time, we’ll get more expensive and worse services,” Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the committee and member of Parliament, tells WIRED. In a worst-case scenario, a deeply entrenched supplier could threaten to withhold service as a way of imposing its will, Onwurah believes. Though the committee says that its objections to Palantir are not ideologically motivated, the report also describes a “clear mismatch with UK values.