- Palantir secures three-month contract before possible extension
- American data company would have access to very sensitive information
- Critics have linked Palantir to ICE, the Israeli military and broader human rights concerns.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has awarded Palantir a three-month trial contract worth more than £30,000 per week to analyze the organisation’s data.
This would mean Palantir would have to access highly sensitive regulatory data, including cases of fraud, money laundering and insider trading, as well as bank reports, consumer complaints and personally identifiable information (PII) such as emails and phone numbers.
Palantir’s AI would likely be introduced to handle huge amounts of data to detect patterns much faster than human analysts.
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The UK-Palantir contract on trial
The Guardian warns of “very significant privacy issues” around using AI with some of the most sensitive data around, not forgetting that the work the FCA does is also particularly sensitive – aimed at tackling drug trafficking, human trafficking and more.
The US data company already has a growing footprint within the UK government, with more than £500m of UK public sector contracts across the NHS, police and defence. However, critics warn that while Palantir started small in the UK, it could infiltrate further and become deeply intertwined with British politics.
Palantir has received its fair share of criticism for its ties to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Israeli military. MPs called the company “questionable” and cited human rights concerns.
As for the FCA’s proposed contract, data will continue to be stored in the UK, with the FCA retaining intellectual property rights to the information generated. Palantir must also delete the data after the contract expires, but questions have been raised over the FCA’s decision to use real data in the pilot rather than synthetic data.
“We conducted a competitive procurement process and had strict controls in place to ensure data protection,” added an FCA spokesperson.
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