- UK government could end Palantir NHS contract prematurely
- MPs are largely opposed to the company’s contract on grounds of data protection and ethical questions
- Break clause could lead to end of contract by early 2027
The UK government is considering activating a break clause in Palantir’s £330 million contract with the NHS.
The controversial US analytics and monitoring technology company has won the contract to provide the NHS with the Federated Data Platform (FDP), a centralized platform for data on NHS staff and patients.
However, the FDP has faced widespread opposition due to concerns about Palantir’s reputation, ethical concerns and fears about providing the company with highly sensitive information on millions of Britons.
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Widespread opposition
“The current contract provides a subscription service that leaves no deliverables after subscription – no software, no enhancements and no intellectual property after spending over £330 million,” Liberal Democrat MP Martin Wrigley said ahead of a Westminster debate. He also said he had evidence to suggest staff found the FDP horrible to use and that it only benefited a quarter of user organisations.
“All specially written software and intellectual property rights belong to the supplier, the contract states. All rights to any know-how are explicitly retained by the supplier and do not pass upon termination of the contract. The contract provides no software – not a single line – just a subscribed service; a permanent lock; a single point of failure,” Wrigley continued. “Palantir is not just a bad technical solution; NHS users report that it is horrible to use.”
MP Zubir Ahmed, assistant minister in the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, said the break clause, which could end the seven-year contract in early 2027, was being considered as a possible option.
“My north star is always patient safety and quality, and of course value for money. If at the time of the break clause we evaluate and find that there are other providers who can do the job better, then of course that needs to be looked at and thought through,” he said.
Why this controversy?
Palantir has been criticized for its involvement in providing the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with its ImmigrationOS software, which helps identify suspected illegal immigrants and track them in near real time – sometimes using medical data.
Palantir staff are also said to have been given NHS.net email accounts, giving them access to a database containing the personal information of more than 1.5 million NHS workers.
Palantir’s UK executive vice president, Louis Mosley, previously said: “We are not interested in patient data in the UK,” in response to criticism from British MPs over the company’s reputation.
Palantir also won a pilot contract with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to analyze highly sensitive financial regulatory data in an effort to root out fraud and financial crimes, sparking more concerns about the company’s access to sensitive information.
Via The register
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