In November 2023, Palantir won a massive contract to run the Federated Data Platform (FDP) to integrate and manage vast amounts of sensitive NHS data, sparking the formation of No Palantir in the NHS, a growing natio­nal campaign of NHS workers, patients and community groups. By now the roll-out of the platform should be well underway. Here Corporate Watch analyses the impact of Palantir’s encroachment on our NHS and amplifies the voices of the health workers on the front line of this fight.

Summary

Drawing on Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and accounts gathered from health workers by No Palantir in the NHS and Corporate Watch, we can reveal:

• Many local NHS trusts and bodies are refusing to comply with the roll-out of the FDP, describing Palantir’s technology as a step backwards on existing systems.
• Only 34 trusts (just under 15%) were actively using the platform and its products.
• More than half of those who responded revealed that they had not adopted the platform at all.

What has Palantir been up to?

As one of the largest big tech companies, Palantir (named after the all-seeing crystal balls that can be used to manipulate from the Lord of the Rings), specialises in data analysis and surveillance software which it sells to military, intelligence and police agencies. In March 2024, Corporate Watch published two in-depth pieces on the company, detailing its origins as the brainchild of notorious Trump donor Peter Thiel, its seed funding from the CIA’s venture capital fund and its complicity in the genocide on Gaza. It also mapped how it got its claws into the NHS by processing the Covid-19 vaccines.

Palantir’s presence in the UK has grown since then, including a £75m data processing contract with the Ministry of Defence (MoD), awarded in December 2021. Its AI model was even used to sift through the submissions for the UK’s Strategic Defence Review conducted in June 2025 after which, perhaps unsurprisingly, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that 10% of the MoD budget would be for new technology, including AI and drones (Palantir works extensively in AI). And in July 2025 Palantir, together with Google and Amazon, pitched to UK Justice Secretary Shaban Mahmood a truly dystopian proposal. It suggested using subcutaneous skin tracking implants to ease prison overcrowding and create a “prison outside prison”.

Palantir has also begun working with British police forces, although details are scarce. An investigation by Democracy for Sale found that the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Central Referral Unit (CRU) has advised police forces to issue a “neither confirm nor deny” response in relation to any query for information “that may or may not be held in relation to Palantir software used for covert purposes”. This is despite a policing ‘covenant’ that promises that “all use of AI will be subject to ‘maximum transparency by default’”. In fact, Bedfordshire and Leicestershire police forces removed the deal from public record after receiving requests from journalists about it. In June 2025, Liberty Investigates and the i Paper reported that Palantir was working on AI-powered, “real-time data-sharing network” with police forces in the East of England that would process sensitive information including people’s health, sexual orientation, sex life, biometric data, trade union membership, race, religion, political and philosophical beliefs. The investigation also revealed that this project was merely a pilot, and so may be rolled-out nationally.

While Palantir denies its products will be used to assist the UK police in predicting future crimes, that is how its tech has been used in the US, and in New Orleans it was revealed to have been conducted in secret. In 2019, Palantir’s predictive policing project in LA was cancelled after being accused of disproportionately targeting black communities and entrenching racial profiling. Its technology has allowed the US immigration enforcement agency (ICE) to identify, track and share information on migrants, as well as run deportation raids and family separations. There are clearly good reasons to be opposed to allowing Palantir access to sensitive data.

PALANTIR’S STALLING FDP ROLL-OUT

The terms of Palantir’s NHS FDP contract were also shrouded in mystery from the start, with three-quarters of its 586 pages redacted (over which the Good Law Project has taken legal action). It appears that originally its uptake was optional, and in April 2024 consultancy giant KPMG was awarded an £8.5m contract to “promote the adoption” of the programme (at the same time as many were cutting management staff to reduce overheads).

However, since then messaging on whether or not adoption was compulsory has been mixed. In the summer of 2024 there was a change of tone and Dame Emily Lawson (COO of NHS England) and Vin Diwakar (NHS national transformation director) wrote to all trust executives and COOs requiring them to confirm their plans by 5 August 2024 to adopt the FDP within the following two years, arguably making its adoption mandatory. According to NHS England (NHSE), by the end of June 2025, 130 trusts has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to join the FDP. But in response to their concerns, it reassured the South Warwickshire’ Trust that signing the MOU didn’t commit them to any timeframe, something which they seem not to be broadcasting more widely.

By February 2025, NHSE claimed that 96 trusts (just over 40%) had ‘signed up to’ the FDP across England. However NHSE admitted in a FOI response to Corporate Watch that only 34 trusts (just under 15%) were actively using the platform and its products (called ‘instances’), while the other 62 trusts had only “signalled their intent” to do so. This reply highlights the misleading nature of official communications regarding the FDP roll-out.

In April 2025, Corporate Watch came together with members of the No Palantir in the NHS campaign to send FOIs: the same questions relating to the timeline, aims and plans for the local roll-out were sent to 205 trusts in England (included in the FDP roll-out). By the time of writing, 172 had replied, with 34 trusts failing to respond in the legally required time.

Although the language used to respond is often vague and professional, with copy-and-paste replies that lack detail, we can surmise that more than half of NHSE trusts are not actively using the FDP. Varying reasons are given for this and paired with the accounts of health workers, NHS data analysts and privacy campaigners involved in the campaign, we understand that Palantir’s proposed solution to NHS data management has not won the buy-in it requires to be fully rolled-out.

The FOI responses reveal that many trusts have politely refused to use the FDP in its current form: for example trusts and ICBS from Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh, Leeds, Manchester, East Kent and Hampshire all said that adopting Palantir’s system would effectively be a backwards step as it isn’t an improvement on, or even equal to, systems already in operation.

In late 2024, Leeds replied to an FOI stating that, “From the descriptions we have of these FDP products we believe we would lose functionality rather than gain it by adopting them”. Several months later, in 2025, Greater Manchester (GM) ICB reported that:

“(Palantir’s platform) does not currently have any system-level products that offer the same or better functionality, compared to the custom-built system already in use for NHS GM”.

In the same report, GM ICB Chief Intelligence and Analytics Officer, Matt Hennessey, told the board that the “adoption of (the) FDP may represent a time-consuming and possibly retrograde step”, adding that its own data system also had a “hard won foundation of trust”, and that choosing Palantir “has caused some public consternation in relation to data security and the decision not to invest in the domestic market”. It also found that extra costs associated with the FDP weren’t covered by the £330m contract and so would presumably have to be paid for by the trusts.

The GM ICB report noted specific objections to any use of the FDP from some GM patients and data controllers, as well as concerns from the local branch of the union Unite, which also objected to the implementation of a Palantir-run platform.

In February 2025, the NHS Chief Data and Analytical Officer Network (CDAON) wrote an open letter to Chief Digital and Information Officer, Ming Tang, detailing their objections to the FDP’s roll-out. The letter cited unclear adoption and maintenance costs and “programme drift” i.e. imposing a single software platform rather than integrating the existing data. The letter concluded that, “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”. Two months later, the CDAON wrote again warning of “patient safety risks” due to systems being closed down before FDP functionality is imminent.

Several other trusts – including in Warwickshire, Essex, and London – refused to use the FDP since they were already implementing a new digital system. Similarly, South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust told us they had decided not to adopt the FDP at this point because they are focusing on implementing a new Electronic Patient Record system (provided by Oracle Cerner, profiled by Corporate Watch in 2024). NHSE are arguably underestimating the staff time needed to implement a new tech system, in the middle of an NHS funding and staffing crisis, and a widespread recruitment freeze.

Taking on the fight against Palantir, the British Medical Association (BMA), the UK’s largest doctors’ union, voted to oppose the FDP roll-out at its June 2025 annual meeting of reps, agreeing to lobby at a national level against the continued introduction of Palantir’s software into health data systems, and for the termination of all existing contracts that the NHS holds with Palantir. Clearly riled, Louis Mosley, Palantir UK Executive Vice President (and grandson of fascist leader Oswald Mosley), accused the BMA of choosing “ideology over patient interest” in his recent questioning in parliament.

Health Workers Oppose the FDP

Accounts from NHS staff on the ground, collected by the No Palantir in the NHS campaign, echo issues raised by the CDAON and hinted at in the FOI responses received. Health workers working on the FDP cite multiple problems, including its limited adoption, poor usability, restricted data access, barriers to collaboration, technical limitations, the requirement of technical expertise that many NHS analysts can’t access quickly, countless staff hours lost on an overly complex system, and data accuracy issues. In July 2025, one NHS digital worker told us that their existing, long-established programmes Power BI and Tableau were “quicker, easier, and far more intuitive than this” and asked, “Why did we spend millions on something that does less?”. They summarised:

“We’re being forced to use a convoluted system that makes even the simplest tasks feel like pulling teeth. It’s demoralising, and honestly, it’s a waste of everyone’s time and public money”.

As well as public trust concerns, NHS data analyst members of the campaign frequently describe frustration and annoyance. One member told us:

“There is widespread dismay among data professionals within the NHS, many of whom feel they are being silently forced to adopt this platform.

Regarding existing tools, they said:

“Not only could similar functionality have been delivered at a fraction of the cost, but the existing tools are already better integrated, more intuitive, and more conducive to collaboration”.

They went on to describe the impact of the roll-out on relations within the NHS:

“This sense of being sidelined in favour of an externally imposed system—without meaningful consultation with the people who actually use and understand the data—has created a significant morale issue. Many feel that their professional judgement has been overlooked, and that this is yet another example of a top-down digital decision that lacks transparency and accountability”.

Another senior NHS data analyst told No Palantir in the NHS that since the beginning of 2025, their colleagues’ discomfort with the FDP and Palantir has grown. They described one instance at an analysts’ FDP training day in February, hosted by Laura Ellis-Philip, FDP Centre of Excellence Lead. The event was meant to be an introductory session to some of the FDP specifics, but the analysts used the session to relay their concerns regarding the FDP’s functionality and their scepticism over its likelihood of being adopted by the trusts. Some examples of questions raised by analysts were:

• “What would happen to NHS data and our FDP platform if the provider (Palantir) were no longer the provider? Would NHSE employees still be able to continue using this platform, or would we have to migrate to a new platform?”
• “Trusts are reluctant to move to FDP – they have their own ways of working and are overworked and under-resourced. How do you intend to get them on board?”
• “The platform keeps changing and [our teams] already have our own reports and ways of working established – what’s the benefit of joining this platform which [at this point] does not provide some functionalities we need?”

This senior NHS staff member continued:

“This was eye-opening for me because up until that point we analysts were only hearing from the leadership of Data and Analytics and from the CEO at the time (Amanda Pritchard) about how great FDP is and how revolutionary the platform will be for reporting and monitoring of health data at all levels – Trusts, ICBs, regions and national NHS staff. This was the first time I could see the real picture, that the ‘buy-in’ for this platform is limited”.

They went on to tell us about conversations in their own team:

“Colleagues have recently expressed discomfort with the news of Palantir’s involvement in surveillance in the US as well as the genocide in Gaza. However, the discussion ended in our team Lead countering these statements by stating that ‘all tech companies have similar backgrounds so it would be hard for us to avoid all of them for our own [NHS] systems’ – he was no doubt referring to companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google”.

The programme has also raised well-founded concerns about data privacy. While the NHS insists that Palantir would not have access to “identifiable medical records”, it also admitted in a document seen by openDemocracy that Palantir would “collect and process confidential medical information”. And as Cori Crider, a lawyer at Foxglove Legal notes, “People are very easy to re-identify from pseudonymised data.”

As we’ve seen, the presence of Israel-supporting, genocide complicit Palantir within the NHS has been opposed on principle as well. Members of NHS ConfedExpo (an independent membership group for organisations that commission and provide NHS services) raised ethical concerns about Palantir’s sponsorship of its 2025 Expo in Manchester. It cited Palantir’s backing of the Trump administration, its support to Israeli military and its role in defence tech. Meanwhile, the coordinator of the BME Leadership Network  – who was due to speak at the event – pulled out, explaining (in a personal capacity) that “giving data to ICE, giving data to the IDF….” do not “align with the fundamental principles of the NHS. It’s like ‘no, we don’t do this. This is not what we’re about, making our patients vulnerable’”. For the second year in a row, health workers and patients involved in the campaign against Palantir disrupted the FDP panels at the NHS conference in Manchester (of which Palantir was a ‘gold sponsor’). One health worker told us why they took action:

 “I refused to let the panellists [on the Expo’s panel about the FDP] normalise collaborating with a company that is carrying out gross human rights abuses worldwide. I am a health worker because I care about people. It is my duty not just as a health worker, but also as a human being to stand up – quite literally in this case – and call out those who are profiting off of pain and bloodshed”.

 They continued:

“…we place so much emphasis on NHS values and behaviours – collaborating with companies that proudly state that their products are ‘used to kill people’ is the anti-thesis of what the NHS is about”.

Commenting on the fact that Palantir’s panellists quietly disappeared from the lineup before the actual day the NHS worker said:

 “I know they were in the audience and I’m glad they were reminded that there will be no business as usual for them in our NHS”.

PALANTIR’S UK GOVERNMENT CONNECTIONS

The evidence is damning, and begs the question as to why Wes Streeting and his government are so intent on prescribing Palantir (and big tech in general) as the medicine for the struggling NHS. Part of that answer can be seen in Palantir’s attempts to embed itself within the UK government and build relationships among political establishment figures. In February 2025, Ex-Tory defence minister, Leo Docherty, joined Palantir as a paid advisor. Labour MP Rachael Maskell suggested that authorising such an appointment should trigger an inquiry into the company’s operations in the UK, noting that “(s)uch a company will only engage a former Tory minister, if it believes that this buys access and opportunity and leads to greater influence, power or profit”. Others now employed by Palantir having taken on powerful government or civil service roles include former Labour deputy leader, Lord Tom Watson; ex-Ministry of Defence strategy director, Polly Scully; and former Mi6 head, Sir John Sawers.

In the same month, Keir Starmer PM visited the Palantir office in Washington DC on his visit to see Donald Trump. This meeting was apparently organised by Peter Mandelson whose lobbying firm, General Counsel, represented Palantir at the time. No minutes or even public record was made of this meeting.

PALANTIR – THE ALL-SEEING EYE – THE THREAT’S IN THE NAME 

But having friends in high places is not enough to explain either Palantir’s interest in the NHS, or the government’s eagerness to assist. Palantir is interested not simply in the profits from managing the vast amount of sensitive data held by the NHS, secured via making it dependent on its products, but from having Palantir embedded across UK government agencies, something which offers the latter some sizeable advantages in terms of social control. As the No Palantir in the NHS Campaign Toolkit notes, the FDP makes it much easier for other government departments (and as we’ve seen, Palantir already has relationships with several) to target vulnerable individuals and communities. This became common practice during the hostile environment data sharing scheme, when Home Office immigration enforcement teams were able to access data collected by schools, hospitals and job centres to track children and adults for deportation. And in January 2025, Mosley argued that the UK should adopt a “common operating system”, linking data from the NHS, Department of Work and Pensions and other public sources on its systems – using a Palantir programme, Foundry, as an example.

Looked at more broadly, it seems that Palantir is attempting to ensure its technology becomes integral to UK and European administrative and military infrastructure, something which the UK government seems to also find attractive from a geopolitical angle. As Mosley explained:

“If you compare the US and Europe, there is a technological revolution in the US, there isn’t in Europe. The US is in the fast-lane, Europe is in the slow lane.”

This appears fuelled by the belief that US domination of tech, and tech’s domination of basic infrastructure, is required in a battle against America’s ‘enemies’. For Mosley, “We are in a global arms race. It is critical that we and our closest allies, like the US, win that race.” Indeed, Palantir co-founder Alex Karp recently stated that one of his original aims when building the company was to “power the West to its obvious innate superiority”. Seen in this context, the UK government’s cosy alliance with Palantir is just an extension of its long-standing collusion with US imperialism, and our health data is simply collateral damage.

As Health Workers for a Free Palestine put it, “businesses that trade in death should have no place in our healthcare system”, and it’s not too late to stop the roll-out of the FDP and loosen Palantir’s grip on the NHS.

Thankfully, as we’ve seen, NHS workers, ICBs and trusts have been refusing to cooperate with the FDP. If you want to get involved in your local No Palantir in the NHS group, or set one up, get in touch with coalition member organisations Health Workers for a Free Palestine (hw4fp.uk@protonmail.com) or Medact. You can also find out more with the No Palantir in the NHS campaign Toolkit.

You can also find out what stage the FDP roll-out is at at your local NHS trust or ICB in England by searching the latest campaign resource here – linking you to all the FOI replies (and more) that have been cited in this piece.