Greens on Sheffield City Council have called on the 3 Sheffield Integrated NHS Trusts and the Sheffield Integrated Care Board (ICB) to opt out of an NHS England contract with US owned company Palantir. The call was made in a motion to Sheffield City Council’s Full Council meeting on Wednesday 24th of June.
Palantir have been awarded a £330 million contract to US data and surveillance to head the new Federated Data Platform (FDP) for cross-NHS data analysis.
Green Party Councillor for Hillsborough Toby Mallinson said,
“Palantir’s involvement in using of medical data to target minority communities in the US for deportation raises significant public trust, ethical, and privacy concerns regarding its stewardship of confidential patient medical records. This could happen here, particularly under a future far-right Government.;
“Palantir’s involvement in support of the genocide in Gaza has led to the UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, calling for sanctions on complicit companies including Palantir. As such, public bodies should not engage with them;
“Reputable organisations, including the BMA, Medact, and Amnesty International have raised concerns over transparency, procurement, and mission creep particularly should the UK political landscape shift even further to the right;
“The cross-party parliamentary Science, Innovation and Technology Committee recommended the UK government exercise the break clause in the NHS’s contract with Palantir, citing an over reliance on US-based Palantir and a mismatch in values.
“Patient data should be managed by trusted public entities rather than outsourced to multinational corporations heavily embedded in the military and intelligence sectors;
“The public money allocated to this project would be better spent on a UK based in-house NHS digital solution.
“If local NHS trusts do decide to proceed with this dubious contract they must ensure absolute data sovereignty, and not rush into the contract without robust community consent and privacy guarantees risks to help give the public trust.
“The Government should be exercising its power to encourage NHS England’s to use the break clause in their contract with Palantir so they can transition to a publicly owned, transparent, UK-based operator.”
