Palantir has begun the process of suing London mayor Sadiq Khan for blocking a £50m deal to supply AI criminal investigations software to the Metropolitan Police.
The US tech firm has also provided services to such illustrious clients as Israel’s genocidal military and Trump’s racist border regime. As if that wasn’t enough reason to drop Palantir, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) pointed out that:
the Met only engaged with one potential supplier, Palantir. It also did not present their procurement strategy to the deputy mayor for approval as required. The process followed by the Metropolitan Police Service for the award of the contract has not adequately ensured, or demonstrated, value for money.
The news of the lawsuit also happens to follow less than a week after the UK’s cross-party Science, Information and Technology Committee called Palantir’s increasing power over the UK state an “unacceptable weakness”. The committee went so far as to urge the government to:
exercise the 2027 break clause in the NHS Federated Data Platform Contract with Palantir and either develop an in-house replacement or seek an alternative UK provider.
So, we’ve got: procedural violations, ethical concerns, and security concerns in play. Remind us again why this is even up for debate?
Conservatives egged Palantir on
Following Khan’s veto, Palantir’s European-branch chief – Louis Mosley, grandson of the famed fascist –told Times Radiothat:
I think the mayor is putting politics over public safety. He talks about values but I think what Londoners’ value is not being mugged, not being raped by a serving police officer, and that’s really what the focus here should be.
Like the obedient lap dogs of big business they are, Conservatives figureheads were quick to jump on Palantir’s bandwagon. Ex-attorney general Michael Ellis characterised MOPAC’s move as:
an extraordinary intervention, which may be susceptible to judicial review.
He argued that, beyond the clearly stated procedural violations, MOPAC had an ethical motive based “on Khan’s political sensibilities”. Likewise, ex-police minister turned shadow home secretary Chris Philp also piled on:
no doubt [that] Palantir has an extremely strong case for judicial review of Khan’s decision, to get it overturned. I strongly encourage Palantir to do that.
‘A subjective assessment’
It now appears that the authoritarian AI company has decided to do just that. Palantir’s lawyers wrote a pre-action letter to MOPAC stating that they’ll challenge Khan’s decision in court.
Defending his position in City AM, Khan echoed public concerns about the AI companies being handed control of sensitive personal data:
They want to know: what are the guardrails? What are the rules when it comes to us using the technology? How can we use it?
We can’t be blind to it. That’s why I’m not evangelical about AI to the extent where I don’t understand the importance of the guardrails and having rules in play.
Campaigning organisation 38 Degrees recently promoted two anti-Palantir petitions which attracted almost 230,000 signatures. The first urged Labour to end all public contracts with the firm. The second called on then-health-secretary Wes Streeting to axe the company’s £330m NHS patient data contract
Regarding the impending lawsuit, a source from within Palantir argued that Khan made a “subjective assessment”, adding:
We don’t take this decision lightly but we cannot stand by if procurement of our software is being politicised in this way.
A truly pathetic argument right there. ‘Sure, maybe we’re evil, but you still have to buy our software or we’ll sue’.
On top of that, Palantir didn’t seem to mind ‘politicising’ procurement when Epstein-linked ex-ambassador Peter Mandelson was handing out introductions between the company and government. And let’s not even get into the fact the tech company was a client of Mandelson’s consultancy at the time…
This lawsuit is a monumental waste of public time and money – the best of luck to Londoners in the ongoing fight to keep this evil company from sinking its claws any deeper into their city.
Featured image via Getty/Leon Neal
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