Zack Polanski is telling defence surveillance corporation Palantir to “pack its bags and get the hell out of the NHS”.

At 9.30am on 22 January, the Green Party leader will deliver a notice of contract termination to Palantir’s London office. The company has a seven year £330m contract with the NHS to build the ‘NHS Federated Data Platform’ to link and manage patient data.

Palantir in the NHS

NHS England awarded the contract in 2023, under the Conservative government. Palantir is also known to have close links to the Labour Party, and it has been reported that Palantir hired Peter Mandelson to lobby the Labour Government to help it win more government contracts. The contract is up for renewal in February 2027.

Palantir is a US company that specialises in artificial intelligence powered military and surveillance technology and data analytics. Billionaire Trump donor Peter Thiel was a co-founder of the company.

The British Medical Association passed a formal resolution in 2025 calling for the cancellation of the Palantir NHS contract. The resolution said the involvement of Palantir in the NHS:

threatens to undermine public trust in NHS data systems, due to a lack of transparency in how the data will be stored and processed, a track record of creating discriminatory policing software in the US, and close links to a US government which shows little regard for international law.

The government has mandated providers and Integrated Care Boards to use Palantir’s FDP. However, fewer than a quarter of England’s 215 hospital trusts were actively using FDP by the end of 2024. Some trusts are on record as questioning its functionality and purpose.

Green Party objections

The Green Party objects to the use of Palantir on three main grounds:

1. We do not trust Palantir and the Labour government with the use of people’s health data. Aside from Palantir’s own disgraceful role in the genocide in Gaza, we also note the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood recently told the Tony Blair Institute that she wanted to use AI and surveillance data so that ’the eyes of the state can be on you at all times’.

The Labour Government is persistently pursing authoritarian policies, including proscribing Palestine Action, abolishing jury trials and attempting to introduce digital ID.

2. Palantir has aided the genocide in Gaza. In January 2024, Palantir signed a deal with the IDF to increase its ‘advanced technology provision’ to Israel in support of war related missions.

Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp says he is ‘exceedingly proud’ of Palantir’s involvement in what he calls ‘operationally crucial operations in Israel’.

The UN special rapporteur on human rights identified Palantir as complicit in war crimes and ‘profiting from genocide’ in Gaza.

3. It has been reported that Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a ‘confidence score’ on the person’s current address.

We believe ICE is acting like a personalised paramilitary police force to Donald Trump, and it recently shot Renee Good dead in cold blood.

Polanski said:

I’m handing a letter to Palantir serving it notice to pack its bags and get the hell out of the NHS.

This Trump supporting military surveillance outfit has no place in Britain’s most important institution. The NHS cares for patients and brings our country together.

Palantir’s most recent history is to actively aid and abet genocide in Gaza and to provide surveillance data for Trump’s paramilitary ICE squads, currently causing death and mayhem on the streets of America.

When Wes Streeting can take some time out from meeting his private health donors, he should cancel this contract right now. If he doesn’t, my letter today to Palantir makes clear we will use every method at our disposal to force them out.

Doctors have made clear they do not trust Palantir with patients’ private data and, with its appalling track record, I am with the doctors.

Zack Polanski’s letter to Palantir CEO Alex Karp:

Dear Alex,

I am today putting you on notice that the Green Party of England and Wales is calling for your contract with the NHS to be cancelled.

We object to your involvement in the NHS on three main grounds:

1. We do not trust you with the use of people’s health data. Your track record around the world of surveillance and discriminatory use of data contributing to abuses and genocide means we don’t believe you a fit partner for the NHS, an institution that has served this country with distinction since 1948.

2. You have actively aided the genocide in Gaza. In January 2024, you signed a deal with the IDF to increase its ‘advanced technology provision’ to Israel in support of war related missions. You have said that you are ‘exceedingly proud’ of Palantir’s involvement in what you called ‘operationally crucial operations in Israel’. The UN special rapporteur on human rights identified Palantir as complicit in war crimes and ‘profiting from genocide’ in Gaza.

3. It has been reported that you are working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a ‘confidence score’ on the person’s current address. We are strongly of the view that ICE is acting like a personalised paramilitary police force to Donald Trump, and recently shot dead Renee Good in cold blood. We stand in solidarity with her.

Further, I know that companies such as yours hire corporate lobbyists such as Peter Mandelson to assess ‘political risk’. I have some advice you can have for free. The political risk is very high for your continuing involvement with the NHS. The Green Party is advancing, and we will use every means at our disposal, including that of our hundreds of thousands of members, to get you out of the NHS.

We will form alliances with like-minded campaigners and MPs, of all parties, so that the pressure on the government to cancel your NHS contract becomes too great. Whatever happens at the next general election, we will use whatever influence we have, to insist on your removal from the NHS.

My understanding is that there is real hesitation among hospital trusts and Integrated Care Boards to use your platform, and from my conversations with people in the NHS, they don’t believe it offers anything they can’t already access, and that it has little to no impact on patient care or reducing waiting times for treatment.

Yours sincerely

Zack Polanski, Leader of the Green Party in England and Wales

Featured image via the Canary