Unsplash Image. Palantir’s Worrying & Scary ICE, War Tech & NHS £330M Deals by Tech Is The Culture
Palantir & The NHS
If you’re a fan of The Lord of the Rings, you’ll know that a Palantir is a seeing stone. The stone is used by powerful wizards to keep an eye on distant lands. In the real world, Palantir Technologies is doing something remarkably similar, though with fewer robes and significantly more server racks.
After securing high-stakes contracts with the Israel Ministry of Defense War Tech and USA ICE, the firm has now planted its flag in the NHS. The question is: should we be worried that the same software used to track movements in a war zone is now looking at our cholesterol levels?
From The Battlefield To The Bedside
Palantir’s primary products, Gotham and Foundry, are two sides of the same data-hungry coin. Foundry acts as the data backbone for the NHS. It helps hospital trusts see a 12% increase in theatre utilization (Palantir UK). Mean While its sibling, Gotham, is the preferred war tech tool for military and surveillance operations.
In Israel, Palantir has been used to support war-related missions. Advocacy groups have been raising alarms about AI targeting systems used in Palestine and the Gaza conflict (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre).
The Hunting Factor (Why UK Citizens Are Twitchy)
The fear that Palantir will be hunting UK citizens isn’t just tinfoil-hat stuff—it’s a direct response to how the tech is being used in the USA. In early 2026, reports surfaced showing that USA ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was using a platform called ImmigrationOS—built by Palantir—to mine health records (specifically Medicaid data) to track the locations of illegal immigrants (BMJ 2026).
While the NHS and the UK government insist that Privacy-Enhancing Technology (PET) keeps your data locked in a digital vault, the technical reality is that the capability for data linkage is exactly why the software is valuable. If the Home Office decided they wanted to find someone, the digital map is already being drawn.
Comparing the Seeing Stonesv AKA Gotham vs. Foundry
Platform 1 Gotham (Military/Surveillance War Tech)
– Main Users: Israel Ministry of Defense, USA ICE, CIA.
– Primary Goal: Real-time target identification and predictive surveillance.
– Core Metric: 99% accuracy in geospatial tracking and pattern matching.
– Data Types Used: Encrypted communications, satellite imagery, and intelligence logs.
– Hunting Ability: Active—designed to proactively find and close the loop on targets.
Platform 2 Foundry/Federated Data Platform (FDP) (Healthcare)
– Main Users: NHS England, hospital trusts.
– Primary Goal: Improving operational efficiency and managing patient waitlists.
– Core Metric: 36% reduction in long-term hospital stays.
– Data Types Used: Medical records, bed availability, and staffing schedules.
– Hunting Ability: Passive—designed to link fragmented databases for business-as-usual monitoring.
The Tech Is The Culture Final Verdict
Palantir doesn’t steal data; they sell the most sophisticated pair of binoculars in the world. The risk isn’t that Palantir is evil—it’s that their software is too good at connecting the dots. When you use the same tech to track a suspected criminal in Manhattan and a diabetic patient in Manchester, the line between care and control starts to get very blurry.
As of January 2026, roughly 34% of NHS trusts are actively using the FDP for daily operations. Whether that number rises depends on if the public believes the seeing stone is looking out for them, or just looking at them.
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