Health workers are urging NHS decision-makers not to sign contracts with controversial US data analytics firm Palantir, citing ethical concerns around human rights and data privacy.
In 2023, Palantir won a seven-year, £330m NHS England contract to deliver the Federated Data Platform (FDP), a nationwide system intended to connect disparate healthcare data from across the NHS while maintaining security and patient privacy.
While the system is not yet fully operational, many hospital trusts and integrated care boards (ICBs) have already signed up to use the platform.
Highlighting how Palantir’s operations around the world have allegedly contributed to “human rights abuses, war crimes, discriminatory policing practices and mass surveillance”, Medact said the firm’s cosiness with law enforcement and border agencies could lead to “data-driven state abuses of power” if people’s sensitive health information is shared with these bodies.
“This report is concerned that the FDP, by bringing together disparate health datasets onto a single platform run by Palantir, could enable UK government departments, such as the Home Office and police departments, to more easily access patient data,” it said.
Medact added that Palantir’s services to other governments, including in its contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have “involved significant cross-departmental data compiling and analysis”, enabling data given to one government department to be repurposed for profiling and surveillance by others.
[We are] concerned that the FDP, by bringing together disparate health datasets onto a single platform run by Palantir, could enable UK government departments to more easily access patient data Medact report
“As well as the potential risk for a current or future UK government to attempt to emulate US-style cross-governmental data sharing, there is a serious risk of Palantir’s contract alienating patients most affected by health inequalities due to this perceived risk,” said Medact, adding that during the pandemic, health advocacy group Patients not Passports found that around 57% of migrants avoided seeking healthcare because they were concerned about being reported to or identified by the Home Office.
Medact said it is concerned that this situation will be made worse by the involvement of Palantir, given its enthusiasm for working with ICE and the existing data-sharing agreements in place between the UK Home Office and the NHS.
These concerns are compounded by the prospect of a potential Reform UK government, as the party has already pledged to facilitate “mass deportations” if it wins power.
According to a Reform policy document published in August 2025, titled Operation restoring justice, the party is aiming to implement an “uncompromising legal reset” and promises to “relentlessly identify and detain all illegal migrants in the UK”. It stated: “Using powers granted by the new legislation, it will automatically share data between the Home Office, NHS, HMRC, DVLA, banks and the police.”
Alongside Palantir’s stated intention to dominate national software provision in the US and allied countries, as well as its active contracts with UK police forces and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Medact warned that there is a real threat of its involvement undermining data privacy and public trust in UK healthcare institutions.
Policing and military contracts
Outside of its close collaboration with ICE – which is currently engaged in aggressive mass deportation efforts across the US, using unidentified masked agents to conduct operations, and employing fascist rhetoric in its communications and recruitment drives – Medact also highlighted how Palantir assists violent military and policing institutions.
This includes supplying software to the US military during its illegal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing police forces across the US and Europe with widely critiqued digital “predictive policing” tools, and supplying artificial intelligence (AI) products to the Israeli military.
Storebrand Asset Management, one of the largest asset managers in the Nordic region, divested its holding in Palantir in October 2024, stating that its research indicates that Palantir’s “AI-based predictive policing systems” support Israeli surveillance of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Storebrand similarly divested from IBM over its supply of biometric database technologies in May 2024, citing the role the supplier plays in maintaining illegal Israeli settlements.
In June 2025, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, published a report that accused tech firms of actively “aiding and abetting” Israel’s “crimes of apartheid and genocide” against Palestinians, specifically highlighting Palantir’s supply of various data platforms and automated decision-making systems.
Given Palantir’s penchant for working with defence and policing organisations, Medact reiterated that the firm’s involvement in the FDP and other NHS systems represents a clash of values that could undermine public trust.
It added that Palantir is also “likely to benefit reputationally” from NHS contracts, by essentially allowing the firm to launder its own public image by associating with a popular institution.
We argue that NHS England’s contract with Palantir is likely to strengthen Palantir’s software and reputation as a company. Given the highly interoperable nature of Palantir’s different civil and military products, this could indirectly result in the NHS contributing to the advancement of militarised technology used to commit alleged human rights abuses Medact report
“We argue that NHS England’s contract with Palantir is likely to strengthen Palantir’s software and reputation as a company,” said Medact. “Given the highly interoperable nature of Palantir’s different civil and military products, this could indirectly result in the NHS contributing to the advancement of militarised technology used to commit alleged human rights abuses.”
Medact added that, given Palantir’s questionable track record on surveillance and human rights around the world, adopting its technology could see hospital trusts, ICBs and NHS England fall foul of their own ethical procurement policies.
It added that there is a risk of trusts and ICBs being locked into a single supplier, reducing their “ability to transfer to a different supplier or retain full autonomy over the code behind their data management systems”.
In February 2025, the NHS Chief Data and Analytical Officer Network (CDAON) wrote an open letter to the chief digital and information officer, Ming Tang, detailing similar objections to the FDP’s roll-out.
In particular, the CDAON cited issues of public trust associated with Palantir’s handling of sensitive health data, and highlighted that viable alternatives already exist.
“We already have similar tools in use that presently exceed the capability and application of what the FDP is currently trying to develop or roll out at a system level,” they wrote.
Medact’s report has been sent to decision-makers sitting across the NHS, including trust boards, ICBs, health scrutiny committees and the Health Data Governance Committee.
Recommendations and Palantir response
To alleviate the concerns identified in its report, Medact has recommended that NHS decision-makers decline to implement the FDP or any other Palantir products in their local data systems, scrutinise their current contracts with the supplier, and investigate the feasibility of in-house or open source alternatives.
Medact has called for NHS England to immediately terminate its Palantir contract.
A spokesperson for Palantir said the firm’s “software is playing an important role in improving patient care – helping to deliver 100,000 additional operations, a 12% reduction in discharge delays and the removal of 675,000 patients from waiting lists”.
They added: “How that software is used is entirely under the control of the NHS, with data only able to be processed in accordance with their strict instructions.”
The spokesperson said the firm also has “no intention of and no means of using the data in the way that the Medact report is suggesting”, adding that “to do so would be illegal and in breach of contract”.
This includes claiming that it is “a matter of company policy” not to support predictive policing applications, that it’s work with ICE is long-standing and dates back to the Obama administration, and that there are “comprehensive” data processing safeguards and controls in place for the FDP.
“Palantir engineers are only able to access NHS data under the direction of the data controllers. This only takes place for appropriate engineering activities like data pipeline deployment and product support tasks,” the company said.
“The technology includes granular access controls and full auditability, ensuring that individuals within the institutions we serve can access only the information necessary to perform their roles. It also provides a clear, traceable record of who accessed specific data, when they accessed it, and for what purpose.”
Palantir added that while it has not been involved in the most high-profile Israel Defense Forces (IDF) artificial intelligence (AI) targeting systems, “we are, however, very proud of the work and support we have provided to Israel following the vicious attacks of October 7th”.
