Palantir Technologies holds a major NHS data contract in England while also supplying military and surveillance technology to Israel, US immigration enforcement, and police forces across several countries. This briefing sets out what is publicly documented about both sides of that record, with sources linked throughout.

The NHS contract

In autumn 2023, a Palantir-led consortium was awarded the contract to build the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), a system intended to link patient and operational data across England. The deal was worth up to £360m over five years, according to Computer Weekly, with an option extending its value to £480m, as also reported by pharmaphorum.

Adoption has been slower and more contested than NHS England anticipated. By the end of 2024, fewer than a quarter of England’s 215 hospital trusts were actively using the platform, according to Democracy for Sale. Leeds Teaching Hospitals told NHS England, in a Freedom of Information response reported by Corporate Watch, that it would “lose functionality rather than gain it” by adopting Palantir’s tools, and Greater Manchester’s integrated care board reached a similar conclusion in 2025, a finding also documented in the Medact briefing on Palantir and NHS data systems.

There have also been concerns about openness within the NHS itself. Reporting cited in Hansard, the official record of UK Parliament, and by Novara Media, has described NHS staff being warned of professional risk for criticising the contract publicly, and organisations facing pressure to sign up voluntarily; NHS England has disputed characterisations of coercion. Separately, the Financial Times reported that NHS England granted external contractor staff, including Palantir employees, broad access to identifiable patient data on a national data area — a claim covered by both Novara Media and TechRadar. The British Medical Association said this risked “the erosion of patient trust,” while NHS England maintains that strict access policies and regular audits are in place.

Political opposition has grown accordingly. The Health and Social Care Committee has written to the health minister urging the government to use the contract’s February 2027 break clause to part ways with Palantir, arguing that alternative systems could deliver the same benefits — reported by Computer Weekly. The BMA voted at its 2025 annual meeting to formally oppose the FDP rollout, a decision documented by Corporate Watch. As Liberal Democrat MP Martin Wrigley put it during a Westminster debate reported by TechRadar, the arrangement “delivers a subscription service that leaves no deliverables after the subscription — no software, no improvements and no intellectual property after spending more than £330 million.”

Palantir and Israel

Palantir’s NHS role sits alongside a well-documented military relationship with Israel. In January 2024, the company announced a “strategic partnership” with Israel’s Ministry of Defence for “war-related missions” — a claim confirmed in Palantir’s own published statement announcing the partnership — the same week CEO Alex Karp told Bloomberg that demand from Israel for Palantir’s tools had surged. The partnership is also reported independently by PassBlue, Middle East Eye, and Novara Media. According to AFSC Investigate, Palantir has supplied technology to Israeli agencies since as early as 2014.

In her 2025 report, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese found “reasonable grounds” to believe Palantir had supplied predictive-policing technology and core infrastructure connected to what she described as Israel’s unlawful use of force in Gaza, naming the company among corporations she says are enabling an “economy of genocide.” This finding is confirmed independently by the UN Human Rights Office, Al Jazeera, and Action on Armed Violence. Asked in April 2025 about allegations that Palantir’s technology had contributed to Palestinian deaths in Gaza, Karp responded, “mostly terrorists, that’s true” — a remark the Special Rapporteur’s report cited as evidence of executive-level awareness of how the company’s tools were being used, as reported by both Middle East Eye and Novara Media.

For balance, it’s worth noting Palantir’s own position. The company has publicly denied building the “Lavender” and “Gospel” targeting systems reported on by Israeli and international media, while stating, according to AFSC Investigate, that it is “proud to support Israeli defense and national security missions” in other programmes. Palantir’s UK chief executive has said that none of Israel’s publicly reported Gaza targeting systems use Palantir software, a point noted by Middle East Eye.

The wider pattern

The NHS and Israel contracts are not isolated cases. Palantir’s core business is embedding its software inside immigration, policing, and military systems, and this pattern is documented across several countries.

In the United States, ICE signed a $30m contract with Palantir in April 2025 to build “ImmigrationOS,” a system that draws on data from the IRS, Social Security, passport records, and licence-plate readers to identify and track people for deportation. This is reported by the ACLU, Democracy Now!, and the American Immigration Council, all of which note that ICE describes Palantir as the “sole provider” capable of the work after more than a decade embedded in its systems. A further investigation, covered by Fortune and State of Surveillance, reported that a Palantir-built tool called “ELITE” draws on Medicaid and other government health data to generate leads on people’s likely current address for ICE; the Electronic Frontier Foundation has sought a court order blocking Medicaid data from being used this way.

In Germany, a court ruled in 2023 that data-processing laws permitting some police use of Palantir’s Gotham software were unconstitutional, prompting several federal states to review their contracts, according to the Medact briefing, which also notes that the rights group Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte has ongoing constitutional complaints against continued use of the software elsewhere in the country. In the UK, the same briefing reports that the civil liberties watchdog Liberty revealed in 2025 that Palantir is working with multiple UK police forces, including trials of surveillance technology, and that documents obtained from Bedfordshire Police showed the company’s software being used to combine criminal records with other datasets.

Watch and listen

For readers who want to go further, several independent outlets have covered this story in depth.

• Channel 4 News questions Palantir UK’s own boss, Louis Mosley, directly on AI in warfare, ICE contracts, and NHS data.
• Novara Media interviews Green Party leader Zack Polanski on the political case against the FDP contract, in “Zack Polanski Tells Palantir To Get The Hell Out Of The NHS.”
• Novara Media’s short explainer connects Palantir’s Gaza-linked military work to its NHS data role, with a direct call to contact your MP.
• The Juice Media’s “Honest Government Ad | PALANTIR” is a darkly satirical, entertaining take on the company — note it contains offensive language.
• Whistleblowers expose Palantir £330 NHS scam.

How to opt out of sharing your health data

If you’d rather your own NHS records weren’t shared for research and planning purposes, there are two separate opt-outs, and you may need to do both to be fully covered, according to the NHS’s own guidance.

The first is a Type 1 Opt-out, which stops your GP surgery specifically from sharing your data. This is done by filling in a form and returning it to your GP surgery, rather than online.

The second is the National Data Opt-out, which stops NHS England and other health and care organisations more broadly from sharing your personal data with other organisations for research and planning. This can be set online, via NHS England’s “Make your choice” service, or checked and managed through the NHS App.

Opting out either way doesn’t affect the care and treatment you receive — your data can still be used to refer you to hospital, issue a prescription, or otherwise directly support your own care.

What you can do

The NHS’s contract with Palantir has a break clause coming up in February 2027, and public pressure has already shaped the debate in Parliament. You can write to your MP asking them to back the Health and Social Care Committee’s call to end the contract at that point, share this briefing with colleagues — especially anyone working in or using NHS services — or come along to an East Berkshire PSC meeting to help plan local campaign action, leafleting, and events.