Ongoing questions will only add to the longstanding controversy surrounding the data firm and, in particular, its work with the US Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Ministers have insisted that highly sensitive UK military data “remains sovereign” to the UK after the Ministry of Defence signed a £240m contract with controversial tech supplier Palantir – more than treble the value of the previous agreement between the two parties.
In late December, the MoD agree a new three-year “enterprise agreement” with data integration and analytics company Palantir. The deal is due to come into effect on 1 April 2026 and is valued at £240.6m – a more than threefold increase on the £75.2m price tag attached to the ministry’s previous agreement with the firm, which was signed in late 2022.
A newly published procurement notice says: “The MoD has awarded a follow-on enterprise agreement… for continued licensing and support to data analytics capabilities supporting critical strategic, tactical and live operational decision making across classifications across defence and interoperable with NATO and other allied nations’ Palantir systems.”
The ministry has worked with the US-based tech provider since at least 2018, and is one of a growing number of public bodies to do so – most notably the NHS, which awarded Palantir a potential £500m contract in 2022 to support the health service’s Federated Data Platform (FDP).
Other customers of the data company include various local or regional NHS entities, Coventry City Council, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
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The UK government’s engagements with Palantir have been subject to much scrutiny and criticism, with the chair of the British Medical Association union describing the decision to use the company for the NHS FDP as “deeply worrying”.
Other prominent critics at the time included senior representatives of Amnesty International, who said that “Palantir is a very troubling choice of service provider for the NHS given the human rights controversies surrounding the company.” A 2020 report from the human rights organisation found that the tech firm’s work supporting the US immigration and security agencies has created “a high risk that Palantir is contributing to serious human rights violations”.
In light of such concerns – which will surely be inflamed by the current operations and recent deaths at the hands of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for which Palantir has been a key long-term partner – ministers have spoken out to provide reassurances about the MoD’s ongoing and expanding engagement with the firm.
Labour MP Jon Trickett recently asked the ministry “what steps [it] is taking to ensure that data analysed by Palantir is protected from access by foreign governments”.
In response, defence industry minister Luke Pollard insisted that “all data used and developed in Palantir’s software deployed across the MoD will remain under the ownership of the MoD”.
“ The MoD has put in place extensive data security and protection measures to ensure UK defence information is appropriately managed,” he added. “UK defence data used and developed in Palantir’s software remains sovereign and under the control of the MoD. We have clear contractual controls in place to ensure this as well as control over the data system that Palantir software sits upon. Any change from this cannot be conducted without consent from the MoD. All data will remain sovereign, freely available across the MoD to be exploited wherever it is needed, including the broader supply chain, and technical ecosystem.”
