Palantir refuses to bid on UK digital ID project, citing lack of democratic mandate

The US software company Palantir has refused to help implement the British government’s digital identity card program, claiming it “lacks democratic legitimacy.”

Palantir, which has good relations with the United Kingdom and also holds contracts with the National Health Service (NHS) to help manage patient care, announced last month that it planned to invest another £1.5 billion in its UK operations.

Palantir also collaborates with British police to assist in “tracking domestic violence perpetrators and combating crime.”

However, Palantir’s UK chief, Louis Mosley, criticized the government’s identity plans and said the company would not bid for any contracts related to the matter.

He told Times Radio:

“Palantir has long had a policy that we will help democratically elected governments implement the policies they were elected to implement, and that has often meant we have been involved in implementing very controversial measures. Digital identity was not a subject that was tested at the last election. It was not in the manifesto. So, we haven’t had that clear, explicit public backing at the ballot box for it to be implemented. That’s why it’s not one for us.”

Palantir, which has contracts with intelligence agencies, the police, and the Ministry of Defence, announced it would not participate in the program, stating it was “a program that should be decided at the ballot box.”

The US-based company was seen as a potential bidder due to its expertise in managing large amounts of data from different sources.

Mosley added that he had “personal concerns” about digital identities, suggesting they could be open to abuse.

The Palantir executive said, “One of my concerns about this is the technical necessity. We’ve all had the experience of dealing with government agencies where the online experience is subpar. That needs to be improved. But we live in a world at the moment where there are at least a dozen unique identifying numbers for each of us across government. We have our passports, our driving licenses, our unique tax codes, our national insurance numbers. At the moment, each of those sits in a separate silo and they don’t talk to each other, they’re not interoperable. It’s not possible for the government to easily move from one to the other.”

Arguing that there were ways to improve this that would not require a completely new form of identity, Mosley responded, when asked how worried the public should be about data security, “Every digital system needs to be protected, needs to be secured. The more of them you have, the greater the risk surface area.”