9 ms·

NHS to investigate Palantir influencer campaign as possible contract breach

240 points by rokkitmensch 3y ago

bloqs 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
baz00 3y ago
I’m not even remotely surprised about this.
walthamstow 3y ago
> Palantir’s Executive Vice President for UK and Europe, Louis Mosely If you're wondering, yes he is related to Oswald and Max
- aredox 3y ago
  Of course Palantir could only be represented by the grand-son of the founder of the pre-WWII British Union of Fascists (and Holocaust Denialist post-war), and son to the famous president of the FIA and Formula 1 - who is also a racist publisher who liked to have nazi-themed orgies (and tried to silence any journal who published it). Really, Palantir's management couldn't have made a finest choice! Absolutely no undertones here. There were absolutely no better candidate.
  - morelisp 3y ago
    Interesting. I think at least one Palantir's founder's hobby shares a strong overlap.
  - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
    The purest culture fit.
  - poszlem 3y ago
    The day we start treating ex-communists the same way we treat ex-fascists, maybe more people will care.
- dcsommer 3y ago
  Please refrain from ad hominem and guilt by association.
cedws 3y ago
I just don't get it. NHS needs a big data platform so they go to a... spy tech company? Why are they so insistent that it must be Palantir that builds this, instead of choosing from a dozen of other consulting companies that don't have a dodgy track record? Ideally the NHS would just build it in house, but sadly it's a slow and bloated organisation unable to innovate (as most government managed things usually become).
- c1b 3y ago
  As someone familiar with the USG data management tech landscape — it’s probably because it’s by far the best product with no remotely close second.
  - SushiHippie 3y ago
    What would be the second in your opinion, even if it's not close?
    - c1b 3y ago
      It varies by agency — either something built in house (very bad) or built by a company that knows how to acquire government contracts, of which there are few - the set of which frankly always has worse tech than Palantir. If product efficacy is not absolutely critical, the acquisition process will be driven by nepotism or other forms of corruption. As an example for the second case in DoD space, there’s Advana.
  - cedws 3y ago
    Which product specifically? As I understand Palantir has several products and the NHS isn't buying one of them but paying for something bespoke.
    - SushiHippie 3y ago
      https://www.palantir.com/uk/healthcare/ https://www.palantir.com/uk/healthcare/ They are using palantir foundry, which is palantir's big data platform, or how they call it: "The Ontology-Powered Operating System for the Modern Enterprise"
TriangleEdge 3y ago
Pre IPO ex Palantir here. Palantir will do a number of things to gain influence. They'll find out who are the decision makers on the space they want a contract, and they'll target them specifically. For example: if they know you take the train to work every morning, and read the news paper, they'll take a full page advertisement on the paper they know you like and that you'll see. They gain this information by, you guessed it, spying on their targets.
- ramesh31 3y ago
  Must respectfully say that this company should not be allowed to exist. We are outsourcing state level powers to a completely opaque private entity with zero accountability. This can only end badly.
  - redcobra762 3y ago
    What does “state level powers” even mean? And they’re hardly “opaque”, at least not any more than any other publicly traded company is, and held to similar account. What do you think they do that’s so above-and-beyond what a non-government organization should be able to do? I wonder if you’re falling for a lot of the marketing hype…
    - p_j_w 3y ago
      > they’re hardly “opaque”, at least not any more than any other publicly traded company is Publicly traded companies are required to report certain financial facts about the company, but they’re still extremely opaque.
      - redcobra762 3y ago
        Yes, as a publicly traded company, but not especially so amongst those.
    - Barrin92 3y ago
      >What does “state level powers” even mean? In this case espionage and surveillance, traditionally domains of the state. >What do you think they do that’s so above-and-beyond what a non-government organization should be able to do? They're not subject to privacy legislation and limitations that the police is. There's a concrete exapmle of this, commercial storage of license plate data in the US is largely unregulated, so police units that have legal limitations on how long they can hold citizen data simply go to the private market and buy that data from those firms. That kind of circumvention of the law and outsourcing of responsibility is probably a large part of the Palantir business model. Seems kind of insane to take your tax payer money and use it to buy surveillance data on you, a good chunk of which probably isn't even legal to otherwise collect and completely undermine the rule of law and democratic control of policing.
KaiserPro 3y ago
Alas, the goodlaw project have a very bad track record for actually getting positive results.
- ascorbic 3y ago
  They've got a great record in raising money.
- hkt 3y ago
  The whole point of their enterprise is that they're attempting to clarify the law, often in particular directions. That can only be done by bringing test cases. A "positive result" comes in several forms there, namely that a) the case is not thrown out and b) they then get their desired result. Simply establishing that they're able to challenge in a particular way can also be a big deal. For example, while it wasn't GLP but Gina Miller challenging article 50, it established that laws can't be revoked except by parliament, and that the SC can police this. Our supreme court is young (est 2006 or so) and is still coming into its powers because those are defined through lawmaking in the courts as well as parliament.
  - giobox 3y ago
    > Our supreme court is young (est 2006 or so) This is not the case at all. The "Supreme Court" in the UK is the latest version of the UK's "court of last resort". Previous to this it was the House of Lords one would appeal to (it had functions to sit as UK's top court as well as the 2nd chamber). The House Of Lords was the Court of last resort for the UK since at least the 1800s. From the Wikipedia page on the "new" UK supreme court: "It assumed the judicial functions of the House of Lords, which had been exercised by the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (commonly called "Law Lords"), the 12 judges appointed as members of the House of Lords to carry out its judicial business as the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords." Indeed, the first 12 justices on the "new" supreme court where just the exact same 12 Law Lords from the previous House of Lords system. The 2006 "Supreme Court" rebrand was a continuing reform of the existing system, not some new level of appellate court the UK had never had before. In reality, they both perform the same top appellate court/court of last resort role. You could bring the same types of cases to the House of Lords as you can to the Supreme Court, and the Law Lords presided over many of the UK's most significant constitutional cases. There are various political reasons why this "rebrand" to Supreme Court was done, but I've typed enough and can't be bothered delving further into this in a reply. It's fundamentally a continuation of the previous long standing Court, and precedent from the many, many pre-existing HoL Court decisions is equal in power to that of the Supreme Court's decisions. Had Gina Miller's case been say 10-15 years earlier, the HoL would have heard and decided the case too - she did not need the existence of a "new" "Supreme Court". > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_functions_of_the_House_of_Lords https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_functions_of_the_Hous... > https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/about-lords/lords-types/law-lords/ https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/about-lords/lo...
EMCymatics 3y ago
[flagged]
- penguin_booze 3y ago
  Takes after its fouder. Apple doesn't fall from the tree.
largbae 3y ago
What other companies out there that seem to behave in a villainous way? Uber under Kalanick? Oracle?
bufio 3y ago
>NHS... Palantir influencer campaign A combination of terms you'd never, ever want to see together in a sentence.

240 points by rokkitmensch 3y ago

bloqs 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

baz00 3y ago

I’m not even remotely surprised about this.

walthamstow 3y ago

> Palantir’s Executive Vice President for UK and Europe, Louis Mosely If you're wondering, yes he is related to Oswald and Max

aredox 3y ago
Of course Palantir could only be represented by the grand-son of the founder of the pre-WWII British Union of Fascists (and Holocaust Denialist post-war), and son to the famous president of the FIA and Formula 1 - who is also a racist publisher who liked to have nazi-themed orgies (and tried to silence any journal who published it). Really, Palantir's management couldn't have made a finest choice! Absolutely no undertones here. There were absolutely no better candidate.
- morelisp 3y ago
  Interesting. I think at least one Palantir's founder's hobby shares a strong overlap.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  The purest culture fit.
- poszlem 3y ago
  The day we start treating ex-communists the same way we treat ex-fascists, maybe more people will care.
dcsommer 3y ago
Please refrain from ad hominem and guilt by association.

cedws 3y ago

I just don't get it. NHS needs a big data platform so they go to a... spy tech company? Why are they so insistent that it must be Palantir that builds this, instead of choosing from a dozen of other consulting companies that don't have a dodgy track record? Ideally the NHS would just build it in house, but sadly it's a slow and bloated organisation unable to innovate (as most government managed things usually become).

c1b 3y ago
As someone familiar with the USG data management tech landscape — it’s probably because it’s by far the best product with no remotely close second.
- SushiHippie 3y ago
  What would be the second in your opinion, even if it's not close?
  - c1b 3y ago
    It varies by agency — either something built in house (very bad) or built by a company that knows how to acquire government contracts, of which there are few - the set of which frankly always has worse tech than Palantir. If product efficacy is not absolutely critical, the acquisition process will be driven by nepotism or other forms of corruption. As an example for the second case in DoD space, there’s Advana.
- cedws 3y ago
  Which product specifically? As I understand Palantir has several products and the NHS isn't buying one of them but paying for something bespoke.
  - SushiHippie 3y ago
    https://www.palantir.com/uk/healthcare/ https://www.palantir.com/uk/healthcare/ They are using palantir foundry, which is palantir's big data platform, or how they call it: "The Ontology-Powered Operating System for the Modern Enterprise"

TriangleEdge 3y ago

Pre IPO ex Palantir here. Palantir will do a number of things to gain influence. They'll find out who are the decision makers on the space they want a contract, and they'll target them specifically. For example: if they know you take the train to work every morning, and read the news paper, they'll take a full page advertisement on the paper they know you like and that you'll see. They gain this information by, you guessed it, spying on their targets.

ramesh31 3y ago
Must respectfully say that this company should not be allowed to exist. We are outsourcing state level powers to a completely opaque private entity with zero accountability. This can only end badly.
- redcobra762 3y ago
  What does “state level powers” even mean? And they’re hardly “opaque”, at least not any more than any other publicly traded company is, and held to similar account. What do you think they do that’s so above-and-beyond what a non-government organization should be able to do? I wonder if you’re falling for a lot of the marketing hype…
  - p_j_w 3y ago
    > they’re hardly “opaque”, at least not any more than any other publicly traded company is Publicly traded companies are required to report certain financial facts about the company, but they’re still extremely opaque.
    - redcobra762 3y ago
      Yes, as a publicly traded company, but not especially so amongst those.
  - Barrin92 3y ago
    >What does “state level powers” even mean? In this case espionage and surveillance, traditionally domains of the state. >What do you think they do that’s so above-and-beyond what a non-government organization should be able to do? They're not subject to privacy legislation and limitations that the police is. There's a concrete exapmle of this, commercial storage of license plate data in the US is largely unregulated, so police units that have legal limitations on how long they can hold citizen data simply go to the private market and buy that data from those firms. That kind of circumvention of the law and outsourcing of responsibility is probably a large part of the Palantir business model. Seems kind of insane to take your tax payer money and use it to buy surveillance data on you, a good chunk of which probably isn't even legal to otherwise collect and completely undermine the rule of law and democratic control of policing.

KaiserPro 3y ago

Alas, the goodlaw project have a very bad track record for actually getting positive results.

ascorbic 3y ago
They've got a great record in raising money.
hkt 3y ago
The whole point of their enterprise is that they're attempting to clarify the law, often in particular directions. That can only be done by bringing test cases. A "positive result" comes in several forms there, namely that a) the case is not thrown out and b) they then get their desired result. Simply establishing that they're able to challenge in a particular way can also be a big deal. For example, while it wasn't GLP but Gina Miller challenging article 50, it established that laws can't be revoked except by parliament, and that the SC can police this. Our supreme court is young (est 2006 or so) and is still coming into its powers because those are defined through lawmaking in the courts as well as parliament.
- giobox 3y ago
  > Our supreme court is young (est 2006 or so) This is not the case at all. The "Supreme Court" in the UK is the latest version of the UK's "court of last resort". Previous to this it was the House of Lords one would appeal to (it had functions to sit as UK's top court as well as the 2nd chamber). The House Of Lords was the Court of last resort for the UK since at least the 1800s. From the Wikipedia page on the "new" UK supreme court: "It assumed the judicial functions of the House of Lords, which had been exercised by the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (commonly called "Law Lords"), the 12 judges appointed as members of the House of Lords to carry out its judicial business as the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords." Indeed, the first 12 justices on the "new" supreme court where just the exact same 12 Law Lords from the previous House of Lords system. The 2006 "Supreme Court" rebrand was a continuing reform of the existing system, not some new level of appellate court the UK had never had before. In reality, they both perform the same top appellate court/court of last resort role. You could bring the same types of cases to the House of Lords as you can to the Supreme Court, and the Law Lords presided over many of the UK's most significant constitutional cases. There are various political reasons why this "rebrand" to Supreme Court was done, but I've typed enough and can't be bothered delving further into this in a reply. It's fundamentally a continuation of the previous long standing Court, and precedent from the many, many pre-existing HoL Court decisions is equal in power to that of the Supreme Court's decisions. Had Gina Miller's case been say 10-15 years earlier, the HoL would have heard and decided the case too - she did not need the existence of a "new" "Supreme Court". > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_functions_of_the_House_of_Lords https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_functions_of_the_Hous... > https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/about-lords/lords-types/law-lords/ https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/about-lords/lo...

EMCymatics 3y ago

[flagged]

penguin_booze 3y ago
Takes after its fouder. Apple doesn't fall from the tree.

largbae 3y ago

What other companies out there that seem to behave in a villainous way? Uber under Kalanick? Oracle?

bufio 3y ago

>NHS... Palantir influencer campaign A combination of terms you'd never, ever want to see together in a sentence.