They claimed it was a short-term, ‘emergency’ response to the COVID crisis. In March, the UK government announced a massive NHS data deal with private tech firms. Experts warned it could involve an ‘unprecedented’ transfer of citizens’ private health information to controversial private firms like Palantir: a secretive artificial intelligence outfit founded by a Trump-backing billionaire.
During months of ensuing legal correspondence, the government assured us that this ‘COVID datastore’ would be unwound at the end of the pandemic and the data destroyed. They also assured us that any extension would go out to public tender, in which taxpayers could see and debate the issues at stake.
All of that has now turned out to be false. Today we can reveal that right as health secretary Matt Hancock was heralding the new vaccine and telling Britons life would be getting “back to normal” by Easter, his government was quietly sealing a lucrative deal with Palantir, worth up to £23 million, to run its massive health datastore for two years. The contract, awarded on 11 December, paves the way for Palantir to play a major, long-term role in the NHS beyond COVID – now, even by the government’s own admission.
