The American company Palantir, which has a good reputation for developing decision support tools through data analysis in sensitive areas such as security, is facing resistance in its conquest of the European public services market.
Founded in 2003 thanks in part to funding from the CIA's funding division, Palantir was originally linked to military command and intelligence agencies. Palantir worked with the US government to identify undocumented immigrants or even potential targets in Afghanistan.
NGOs such as Amnesty International have long highlighted the risks of mass surveillance and attacks on individual freedoms. The company – described by Slate magazine as one of the “evilest” around – claims to have helped protect the world from terrorism.
While Palantir became profitable for the first time in January, the company has redoubled its efforts in recent years to establish itself in the European market, particularly in France (where it has around ten customers, half of which did not want to acquire customers). this collaboration public).
The company, which provides Ukraine with artificial intelligence tools in its war against Russia and counts aerospace giant Airbus and the Danish police among its partners, plans to expand into the public services sector.
The company already works with U.S. healthcare providers and signed a 330 million pound ($565 million) contract last year to centralize data from the National Health Service (NHS), the United Kingdom's public health service. United.
Fearful that patient data will be collected by Palantir with no guarantee of what will happen later, associations and medical professionals have taken legal action to terminate this contract. Their goals: put pressure on the British government to disclose the conditions or obtain guarantees on data protection.
This uprising could have serious implications for many public services around the world and for Palantir's expansion ambitions in this sector.
“Leadership goals”
“We cannot look at these partnerships without keeping in mind the goals of the managers of these companies,” emphasizes Rosie Collington, whose research at University College London focuses on outsourcing of public services.
However, Palantir's founder, libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel, is always the subject of controversy.
“Motorways cause traffic jams, welfare creates poverty, schools make people stupid and the NHS makes people sick,” he announced notably in January 2023, comparing the British report to their public health service with a “Stockholm syndrome.”
Palantir has since defended itself by saying that its founder was taking a personal viewpoint at the time. And the group has launched a campaign to address concerns.
“Unlike many other companies, our business model is not based on the collection, use or sale of personal information,” he said.
In 2018, a former Airbus executive took over as head of Palantir's French office with the aim of expanding its workforce and customer base in France.
But this strategy sometimes runs into pitfalls in France: the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), which signed a contract with the company in 2015, recently decided to part ways with it and favor French tools.
Another setback was a German court's decision last year to ban police use of its surveillance software after a lawsuit from the German Society for Civil Rights, which was particularly concerned about the risk of errors and discrimination.