Palantir has £330m in NHS contracts. Should Britain be worried?
A US defence and surveillance company has quietly become one of the biggest tech suppliers to the British state. Here is what that means for patients, taxpayers and public data.
Key points
- Palantir, a US defence and data-analytics company, holds a £330 million contract with the NHS in England.
- The UK Parliament's science, innovation and technology committee said in 2024 that the government should end its relationship with Palantir, citing a "clear mismatch with UK values".
- Peter Thiel and Alex Karp co-founded Palantir; the company built its name on surveillance and intelligence contracts with the US military and security agencies.
- Andy Burnham, tipped as a future Labour leadership candidate, faces pressure from colleagues to review British public contracts with the company.
- Defenders of the deal, including a former Conservative adviser writing in the Financial Times, argue the only test that matters is whether the technology works.
Palantir is not a household name. But if you have used the NHS recently, this company probably touched your data.
The firm, founded by billionaire Peter Thiel and chief executive Alex Karp, built its fortune selling data-analysis software, software that hoovers up huge volumes of information and spots patterns, to the US military and intelligence agencies. It is now one of the largest technology suppliers to the British state, with contracts spanning defence, immigration and health.
The biggest contract is a £330 million deal with NHS England. That figure, paid out of public money, buys Palantir's Federated Data Platform, a system that pulls together patient records from different hospitals so doctors and managers can see them in one place. The practical goal is sensible: cut waiting lists by making information flow faster.
So what is the concern?
Critics point to two things. First, who Palantir is. The company's core business has always been surveillance. Its tools have been used to track migrants, target military strikes and monitor protests. Parliament's own science, innovation and technology committee warned last year that Palantir's track record represents a "clear mismatch with UK values".
Second, how the contracts were won. Investigative reporting, including work flagged by The Guardian, raises questions about whether paid-for political access helped Palantir embed itself in Whitehall before proper procurement rules could catch up.
Should NHS patients be worried about their data?
The honest answer is: we do not know enough. The NHS says data inside the platform stays under NHS control and cannot be sold or shared with Palantir's other clients. Independent experts argue the contractual protections are real but the oversight is thin. If the company were ever sold, sanctioned or hacked, those protections would face a serious test.
For now, your GP records are not directly inside the platform. Hospital operational data, things like bed availability and waiting times, make up the bulk of what flows through it.
The political pressure is real and growing. Several Labour MPs want the contract reviewed. The counterargument, made plainly in the Financial Times by former Conservative adviser Camilla Cavendish, is straightforward: if it cuts waiting lists, use it.
Both positions deserve respect. The technology may well work. Working well and being the right long-term partner for a public health system are different questions.
The one honest takeaway: if you want to know what data the NHS holds about you and how it is shared, you can request that information directly from your GP surgery or hospital trust under UK data protection law. It costs nothing and takes one letter.
