Open letter to ICB on the use of Palantir data services
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Dear Members of the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board,
We are writing to you as organisations committed to supporting a public, transparent, and ethical National Health Service. We are deeply concerned about the recent decision by NHS England to award a central data management contract to Palantir Technologies for the Federated Data Platform (FDP), and the implications this has for local commissioners and service users.
As you are aware, the £330 million national contract awarded to Palantir—an American data analytics firm with close ties to US military and intelligence services—has raised serious ethical, strategic, and operational concerns across the healthcare sector and civil society. While NHS England has encouraged local Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) to opt into this platform, we understand that many commissioners are reluctantly signing on, either under pressure or simply to avoid being left out of future capabilities, despite intending not to make active use of the platform.
We urge you to reconsider any engagement with Palantir on the following grounds:
1. Greater Manchester Already Has a Better Data Infrastructure
Greater Manchester has been a pioneer in healthcare data integration through systems like the GM Care Record and local analytics capabilities developed in collaboration with trusted local institutions such as Health Innovation Manchester and the University of Manchester. These platforms are mature, widely used by clinicians and care providers, and offer better value for money than the FDP’s one-size-fits-all approach.
As your chief intelligence and analytics officer Matt Hennessey said in a recent ICB meeting, our local capability “exceeds anything the FDP currently offers and that some of the capabilities we currently have actively in use within [Greater Manchester] are around two to three years away from being fully operational with the FDP”.
There is no evidence that Palantir’s offer will improve upon the work already done in Manchester. On the contrary, it risks duplicating existing efforts, draining resources, and centralising control in ways that diminish local autonomy and adaptability.
2. Ethical Concerns About Palantir’s Track Record
Palantir’s history is not one aligned with the values of the NHS. In 2024, Palantir’s founder Peter Thiel referred to people’s appreciation of the NHS as ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ and he suggested that the NHS ‘makes people sick’.
The company has been involved in controversial military and surveillance operations:
· It has provided the US police forces with tools that they describe as facilitating “predictive policing” – widely criticised for unfair targeting of poor and black communities.
· It has provided technology that includes ‘advanced and powerful targeting capability’ for warfare across the globe. Most recently it has aided Israel in the genocidal war against the population Gaza.
· It has aided governments in mass surveillance operations against their own populations
Such associations make their involvement in the NHS deeply troubling, especially given the public’s trust in the NHS as an institution that upholds equity, care, and ethical integrity. Healthcare data is profoundly sensitive. It should not be handled by firms whose business model is secretive, entwined with opaque state surveillance, military operations, and profit-seeking from personal data.
3. Yet more Privatisation within public services
Awarding data infrastructure contracts of this scale to private tech firms like Palantir represents another form of NHS privatisation. The NHS should be investing in open-source, public-interest technology that is affordable, transparent, and accountable to patients and professionals alike. Open-source alternatives like OpenSAFELY, built during the pandemic with full auditability and public ownership, show that world-class data analytics can be developed within the NHS and academic sector—without handing over our data systems to multinational companies.
4. Undemocratic Decision-Making and Public Distrust
There has been a lack of meaningful public consultation or parliamentary debate about this major shift in NHS data policy. As a result, there is widespread concern and distrust, particularly from marginalised communities who are already subject to disproportionate surveillance and health inequalities. Decisions to share data with Palantir without transparent engagement, risks damaging public confidence in health data sharing altogether—undermining essential care and research.
We appreciate the ICB recent decision to defer signing our GM service users and related data up to Palantir’s Federated Data Platform.
We ask the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board to take a principled stand:
· Reject use of Palantir’s Federated Data Platform for local data handling.
· Move beyond rationales related to finances or ‘future functionality’ and take a principled stand.
· Continue investing in and improving the local data systems that already serve our communities well.
· Advocate nationally for open, ethical, and publicly owned alternatives for NHS data infrastructure.
We are proud of our diverse multi-cultural communities in Manchester. Our systems should protect the most vulnerable. Adopting Palantir data systems will do the opposite and will erode trust with ICB and ICP leadership and in our public health institutions. Manchester has always led the way in progressive public services. We ask you to continue this tradition now by standing with patients, professionals, and communities in saying no to Palantir.
We would welcome the opportunity to meet and discuss this further.
