The Nerve has discovered that a controversial AI programme developed by Palantir Technologies to monitor for misconduct in British police forces, which was originally intended to close at the end of April, has been extended to today, 15 May – and that, when asked to confirm whether the project would continue after today’s expiration, the Metropolitan police refused to comment.
Multiple officers have expressed fears to the Nerve about the tool’s infringement of their privacy, and concerns about the lack of consultation or negotiation around its implementation. The Police Federation has previously said that the “use of AI to spy on our officers is not proportionate, just or proper”.
The original contract for a pilot project, published on the Government’s Contracts Finder website under the title “Unified Data Platform Phase 1”, originally ran from 1 February to 30 April this year.
Palantir’s tool had been used as part of a plan to surveil police and combine “internal data we already hold from multiple standalone systems into a form which can be used without delay as part of our professional standards work”.
The Met said that the tool had found evidence of serious misconduct and criminality from a small amount of officers, and that three had been arrested for offences including abuse of authority for sexual purposes, fraud, sexual assault, misconduct in public office and misuse of police systems.
The force has refused to state whether, as the extension concludes, the contract will be renewed further, and some Met officers are increasingly worried that their devices might be placed under permanent surveillance using Palantir software.
Other concerns raised among members of the force who have spoken to the Nerve include the accuracy of the programme’s ability to catch rogue officers, the lack of proper consultation with staff, and a glaring absence of clarity on the cost of the extension.
The £489,999 payment awarded for the original work avoided hitting the £500,000 threshold for scrutiny from the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime, but London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has stated that he may oppose future deals using Palantir’s software because of “concerns about using public money to support firms who act contrary to London’s values”.
Talks about the force signing another, multimillion-pound, contract for automating intelligence analysis for criminal investigations are ongoing.
This continuous 24/7 geolocation tracking is highly intrusive and risks monitoring officers when they are off duty, on rest days, or at home
The Met press office refused to clarify whether more money had changed hands as part of the contract extension, saying the matter was “commercially sensitive”. They said the pilot “was time-limited with this short extension as outlined”.
A key issue for the serving police officers who have spoken to the Nerve on the condition of anonymity, has been the lack of proper communication regarding how Palantir’s tech will be used to monitor them. In a public statement, the Metropolitan Police Federation – the staff association representing officers – said it “was not informed that the force would be using Palantir’s artificial intelligence to analyse the movements of cops in the capital”.
Two Metropolitan Police officers wearing body work cameras on duty outside Westminster Abbey. Photo: Andrew Aitchison / Getty
One officer said that what was sent out to them was an internal intranet message, which they said was “very harshly written”. They read it in the expectation that “we’d be reassured about not being spied on, but it wasn’t like that – it was quite aggressive, and people weren’t happy about it”.
They also said the force was apparently in talks with an unspecified union about installing Palantir software on non-officer staff devices. The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), confirmed that it had been informally advised by the Met that they intend to start monitoring its staff, but that they had not been given specifics on the software system that would be used. They also said that they had received no formal consultation from the Met about the process.
Another long-serving officer criticised the intrusiveness of Palantir’s work, describing it as “very Big Brother”. They said the Met “signed up to a contract, essentially without telling us or warning us they've signed a contract, and they’ve got this tool that scans all electronic information that the Met have on its staff”.
They added that because of a lack of clarity given to police on how Palantir’s tech will be implemented, “we don't know what information they're using, but it includes our work mobile phones and laptops, which we’re obligated to use – you can get disciplined for not logging in enough. So we’ve all been wandering around with our work phones and laptops and they can track where we are, where we’ve been … everyone’s very angry about it.”
The second source told the Nerve that “they want us to change [ie replace] our laptops”, and that they were “sceptical” as to why the police would need to use such intrusive measures on their own officers, especially when staff were taking their devices home with them. They said: “If I was to get one of these new laptops, I’d probably put it in one of those Faraday bags and keep it in the garage. I do not want their devices in my house because of fear of invasion of privacy”.
The Metropolitan Police Federation’s general secretary, Matt Cane, said that the “use of AI to spy on our officers is not proportionate, just or proper. It’s an outrageous and unforgivable invasion of privacy … This continuous 24/7 geolocation tracking is highly intrusive and risks monitoring officers when they are off duty, on rest days, or at home.” As a result, the federation has urged officers to be cautious about using work devices when off duty.
Palantir's business model is fundamentally parasitic
The Met claimed last month that 98 officers were being assessed for misconduct relating to “abuse of the IT system that rosters shifts by police officers for personal or financial gain”, and that 500 more had received prevention notices relating to the same offence.
One source described being one of the 500 officers that received a warning for changing one of their days at work on the system. In their case, one of the days they received a warning for was for cancelling an annual leave day on their birthday in order to sit a work-related exam. Had a basic investigation been carried out, they said, this would have been established quickly. They suggested that there was a real possibility of “good cops” being caught up in an unfair process without proper oversight.
While the police have not confirmed whether or not Palantir’s software will be used on officers on a longer-term basis, or if talks are currently going on with regard to further internal monitoring, this seems likely, according to the Nerve’s sources.
This would also follow a frequent pattern in which Palantir takes on work on a trial basis, for a low nominal fee or even free of charge, that transforms into an official, longer-term contract later, often at a greatly inflated cost.
In 2023, the UK’s chief commercial officer wrote to Palantir expressing concern about its "practice of offering services to public sector customers for a zero or nominal cost to gain a commercial foothold, contrary to the principles of public procurement which usually require open competition”, after the company signed a six-month agreement – free of charge – to create a system running the Homes for Ukraine scheme for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). The company then went on to receive multiple contract extensions worth tens of millions of pounds.
Similarly, Palantir’s first contract with the NHS, a Covid “datastore” deal awarded without competition during the pandemic for just £1, and originally sold to the public as a short-term emergency response, later resulted in the company being deployed across the health service, eventually securing the lead role in the £330m pound deal to run the Federated Data Platform (FDP), among a host of other awards from both the NHS and DHSC.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said that “offering cheap services as loss leaders is a well known tactic of tech vendors and consultants – their aim is dependency, and once dependency is created, prices go up.
“That's what Palantir mean when they say they want to be the 'operating system for government'. They mean ‘we want to become so embedded that it will be really painful to remove us’. Palantir's business model is fundamentally parasitic."
Other UK police forces, apart from the Met, have already begun deploying Palantir software. Forces in Leicestershire and Bedfordshire have both confirmed working with the company on projects that involve processing data from more than a dozen UK police forces, which – as reported by Liberty Investigates – could serve as a pilot for a national rollout of Palantir technology, giving the company access to swathes of data.
Martin Wrigley, a Liberal Democrat MP who is a member of the Commons science and technology select committee, echoed the concerns of others that the pilot deal could be a way for Palantir to embed itself within policing infrastructure on a permanent basis.
“Once again, we’ve got the early-days experimentation, just like the £1 NHS system, bringing them into spaces where they don’t have prior expertise, and putting them in as the only potential candidate, so once again we predict that they will have a contract without competition, and that’s just not on,” Wrigley said.
Palantir was approached for comment.