Britain has a weak hand in Palantir test case
17/04/2026 12:43
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own. By Jennifer Johnson LONDON, April 17 (Reuters Breakingviews) - UK politicians have a decision to make on Palantir Technologies PLTR.O. Campaigners want England’s National Health Service (NHS) to ditch a 330 million pound ($450 million), seven-year contract signed in 2023 with the $340 billion U.S. software group. Exercising a 2027 clause allowing Britain to walk away — or, alternatively, carrying on as usual — both come with alarming downsides. But the latter looks more likely. A Federated Data Platform (FDP) for the NHS’s 200-plus silos of antiquated medical data is a good idea. Palantir’s winning pitch was that its Foundry software can integrate disparate data sets into a digestible whole better than anyone else. That sliced and diced data then becomes a high-quality basis for artificial intelligence to make faster and better decisions. Hospital trusts used the FDP to enable 110,000 extra patients to undergo procedures in operating theatres by the end of December 2025, according to NHS England. Palantir claimed in 2024 that an initial pilot at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Trust helped reduce the inpatient waiting list by 28%. Palantir’s alchemy is less effective if NHS staff boycott it. Some health workers contacted by the Financial Times believe that using the FDP means relying on a company that works with U.S. intelligence services and immigration authorities, while creating privacy concerns around sensitive patient data. Palantir and the NHS maintain that the firm does not control any medical information, and say that data is held in the UK with controlled access and contractual exit rights. Nor can it commercialise any data or use it to train AI models. However, Palantir is still a U.S. company. A single foreign vendor deeply embedded in the systems that integrate, structure, and operationalise the UK's most sensitive health data could prove tricky to replace without major disruption. Blithely hoping that this won't create future difficulties seems risky. Unfortunately for UK citizens, their government looks stuck. Even if it u-turned on the FDP, Britain's Ministry of Defence recently signed a contract with Palantir worth up to 750 million pounds over five years to use the same data integration solutions for its military. One data expert told Breakingviews that a smarter policy would have been to spend similar sums on homegrown capabilities a decade ago — but the UK chose not to. It now lacks a meaningful plan B — many potential Palantir alternatives, like Microsoft MSFT.O, are U.S. companies too. That leaves politicians having to pick their poison: voluntarily and potentially needlessly set its health and military capabilities back years, or soldier on with the theoretical risk of a U.S. flashpoint in future. Palantir's big U.S. market renders the matter less existential for its growth, whatever UK lawmakers decide. But in December France’s domestic intelligence service renewed its contract with the U.S. group for three more years, despite having searched for a domestic alternative. The most likely outcome in Britain could be something similar. Follow Jennifer Johnson on Bluesky and LinkedIn. CONTEXT NEWS UK lawmakers held a debate on April 16 about the rollout of the NHS England’s Federated Data Platform (FDP), a cloud-based IT system provided by U.S. software group Palantir Technologies. The discussion follows a period of scrutiny by civil society groups, including Foxglove and Amnesty International UK, over Palantir’s links to surveillance, policing and military operations. Campaigners say the FDP could make sensitive NHS data easier to combine, access and repurpose in ways patients cannot easily see or control. They also argue Palantir is an unsuitable partner because of its work with U.S. immigration authorities and Israel’s armed forces – and have urged the government to trigger a February 2027 break clause in the contract. Palantir has said the NHS retains full ownership of its data and any analysis derived from it. The group’s UK executive vice-chair, Louis Mosley, recently told the BBC's Politics Live programme that it has “no interest in patient data in the UK”. Analysts predict domestic businesses will become Palantir's key customers https://www.reuters.com/graphics/BRV-BRV/egpbeqexmvq/chart.png (Editing by George Hay; Production by Streisand Neto) ((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on JOHNSON/Jennifer.Johnson@thomsonreuters.com))