Palantir and the NHS – local protest

Rally outside Whittington Hospital as part of Palantir day of action

In 2023, the UK government awarded a contract to US software corporation Palantir, to supply a Federated Data Platform (FDP) which will collect NHS patient information together into one huge database.

Palantir’s specialisation is in Artificial Intelligence which is utilised in warfare, surveillance and border controls, and so objections have been raised by privacy experts, human rights organisations and health practitioners that such a company be given any access to sensitive patient records.

The initial contract was for 3-years and is coming up for review, so the pressure on the government is ramping up, especially because of Palantir’s direct complicity with Israel’s Genocide and Trump’s racist ICE paramilitaries, along with the deeply concerning public pronouncements of its fascist-adjacent co-founders. The UK CEO is Louis Mosley, grandson of the British Union of Fascists leader Sir Oswald Mosley.

On October 1st, a wide range of organisations came together to hold dozens of co-ordinated protests and rallies across the UK and internationally. We attended one of the first rallies around London, which took place at the Whittington Hospital in north Islington.

The Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition (DWHC) formed in 2009 to see off plans to close the busy A&E department. They also campaigned successfully four years later against plans to sell off hospital buildings and close wards. Last week their Chair, Shirley Franklin, spoke about their (so far successful) campaign to keep Palantir out too, helped by the Good Law Project’s Head of Tech and Data, Duncan McCann, who has had the ear of the hospital board since the DWHC stormed a board meeting last year.

Many believe that the NHS has been deliberately underfunded, reorganised and widely outsourced over more than a decade as part of plans (under intense lobbying from US insurance companies) to move by stealth towards full privatisation. Real Media has for many years promoted the research of Dr Bob Gill whose warnings have revealed each stage of the process.

Handing over patient records to a company that has the AI ability to analyse and determine risk – valuable information for an insurance-based system – is a massive and Orwellian step away from the principle of treatment according to need. Concerns are multiplied when you factor in that Palantir also has existing UK public contracts amounting to close to three-quarters of a billion pounds, including for the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Defence and police.

The Whittington Hospital is among many organisations that have shied away from using the Palantir FDP – they’ve publicly announced they will not use the FDP unless forced to by law. Both Manchester and Sheffield Councils have refused Palantir systems, and as the contract renewal date nears, resistance is coming from so many quarters that campaigners are beginning to be hopeful. The London Assembly, Parliamentary Committees on Health & Technology and on Science & Technology, the British Medical Association, and the Association of Chief Data Analysts have all told the government to quit the contract, and large NGOs like Amnesty International, MedAct and the Palestine Solidarity Coalition have joined with grassroots campaigners like Health Workers For A Free Palestine, PauseAI, and dozens of local NHS campaign groups like DWHC, all working to kick Palantir out of our National Health Service.