‘A litany of concerns’: Hackney councillors discuss Palantir contract with Homerton

Cllr Ben Hayhurst, Chair of the Health in Hackney scrutiny commission and Duncan McCann of the Good Law Project. Photograph: Hackney Keep Our NHS Public

Campaigners have raised a ‘litany of concerns’ regarding a potential contract between a Hackney hospital trust and a controversial US data company.

During a Health In Hackney scrutiny commission meeting (Tuesday 14 October), discussions focused on Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust entering an NHS contract with Palantir, a company which supplies technology to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and assists the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in meeting its deportation quotas.

The NHS has already signed a £330 million contract with Palantir to provide a data management system called the Federated Data Platform (FDP) that aims to provide a single platform to store data ranging from patient data to bed availability.

This contract is likely to exceed £1billion over its first seven years, according to the Health Service Journal.

Explaining Homerton’s stance on entering the contract, Tom Nettle, deputy chief executive of Homerton Healthcare said: “while implementation is not currently mandated in relation to using the FDP, all trusts and ICBs are being asked to provide plans as to how they’ll maximise the benefits of the NHS FDP offer for patients within the next two years.

“At Homerton we are currently going through an active process of reviewing how we might make use of the FDP. They offer various solutions and we are looking at those.

“We’re still considering whether a solution would offer us a benefit at the trust and that consideration is ongoing.

“As part of this we are speaking and seeking detailed feedback not just from the central team and NHS England but also from a large number of trusts that are already using it.”

Nettle said there has been no specific timeframe for this decision outcome, but it would be “months as opposed to anything longer than that”.

After a decision has been made this may also be revised, Nettle said, as further information about the system’s efficiency develops.

However, Nettle said: “Should NHS England or NHS London choose to use the FDP systems to monitor and manage performance, Homerton will be required to utilise FDP as part of those processes.”

It was also revealed that Homerton Hospital Trust is currently participating in an FDP system to provide performance data on London Ambulance Service A&E admissions.

Hackney Keep Our NHS Public and Palestine campaigners, Town Hall, Tuesday 14 October 2025. Photograph: Hackney Keep Our NHS Public

Duncan McCann, Head of Tech and Data at the Good Law Project said a contract with Palantir posed “massive questions”.

He said: “What’s this company been doing in its 10 years of practice? Unfortunately it’s a litany of abusing minorities and helping authoritarian regimes. This company does not fit with the ethos, ethics and values of the NHS and even with the UK people.”

Founded in 2003 by Trump donor Peter Thiel, Palantir is a data-mining firm which has attracted an increased level of attention and criticism after information about its new and expanded contracts have been revealed.

Palantir was first awarded an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract by the US Department of Homeland Security under the Obama administration in 2014, which has been renewed several times since.

This includes an additional $30 million ICE contract awarded in April for Palantir to create a surveillance platform called ImmigrationOS to help “streamline” the identification and arrest of immigrants prioritised for removal and make deportations more efficient.

Palantir has also been criticised by the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, for its strategic partnership with the IDF to assist its “war-related missions”.

McCann also raised concerns around data rights and security for Hackney residents.

He said: “If there is one feature of Palantir’s engagement it is an absolute lack of transparency.

“The Good Law Project had to fight very hard to get the contract that the NHS had with Palantir which originally was about 500 fully redacted pages which we had to take the government to court to get released.

“Patient trust is critical for the NHS. The previous two massive IT projects, Care.data and GP DPR, both resulted in multi-year initiatives but both failed.

“Among many reasons they just didn’t bring people along with them. Each of them resulted in about 1 million people opting out of the data set. This hugely devalues the data and means there is lots of insight that we can get which we will never learn.”

Concerns have been raised by some local NHS trusts who say the system was not better than the existing technology, as reported by the website Democracy for Sale.

Mr McCann said: “It is great to hear that Homerton is still evaluating whether it can provide a benefit. I hope as well as looking at the trusts who are claiming a benefit at the moment they will also look at those who have declined the FDP and have made it clear that the systems they have in place are already better than what the FDP is delivering.”

Recently the British Medical Association warned the NHS contract with Palantir “threatens to undermine public trust in NHS data systems”, because it was unclear how the sensitive data would be processed by Palantir.

Mr McCann said: “We are in touch with workers in many trusts across all levels who want to resist the rollout. There is a litany of concerns.”

Ethical concerns were also raised by Cllr Claudia Turbet-Delof and Cllr Grace Adebayo, who questioned if migrant and asylum seeker communities had the privilege to “opt-out” of their data being shared, over fears it would be “inappropriately” passed on to the Home Office.

Cllr Turbet-Delof said: “We are becoming a borough of sanctuary. How does this sit with a platform like this managing the data of residents in Hackney, especially those who are already scared of accessing healthcare perhaps because of immigration status?

“I feel that there is a real conflict there that we have to take really seriously.”

Patients’ ability to opt-out does not apply to primary care uses of the FDP solutions, it only applies to secondary care uses such as research.

Nettle said: “We’ve been clear about what we are considering and we obviously need to listen to, and take into account the concerns that are being raised here, but equally we need to look at the assurances and the evidence that NHS England provides. We do have to make sure that we take those incredibly seriously.”

Nettle highlighted that the FDP solutions are free to NHS trusts, and can offer benefits.

Nial Canavan, chief information officer for NHS North East London Health and Care Partnership and IT director for Homerton said: “The whole idea of the FDP is to create a common data infrastructure.

“You can add platforms like waiting list initiative applications where you can look at the people who might breach within the next few weeks, which allows you to bring those operations forward and you can minimise the number of breaches. The ambition is to take advantage of new technology quickly and for everybody.”

Palantir has been approached for comment.