Campaigners have urged a Hackney hospital trust not to enter a contract with a controversial US data company.
Hackney Keep Our NHS Public said they were concerned that Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust would join an NHS contract with Palantir, a company which supplies technology to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and assists the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in meeting its deportation quotas.
Marion Macalpine of Hackney Keep Our NHS Public told the Citizen: “The main issue is around public trust. Palantir is associated with human rights abuses which clearly go against the ethical and diversity policies at Homerton.
“It’s extremely concerning that our lovely local hospital is looking into a partnership with a company implicated in the destruction of hospitals in Gaza and the death of health workers.”
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 £1bn over its first seven years, according to the Health Service Journal.
Ms Macalpine said: “The NHS is leaking money into shareholders' pockets.
All these contracts which appear to be to do with efficiency see our NHS lose all kinds of benefits and skills.”
Speaking on behalf of Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, a spokesperson said the trust is “currently reviewing plans” of how it might make use of the NHS FDP.
He said: “We are reviewing the various solutions and we are still considering if there is a solution that would benefit the Trust and, most importantly, our patients. These considerations are ongoing.
"As part of these considerations, we are seeking detailed feedback on the benefits and challenges using the FDP brings at other NHS trusts.”
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.
Recently the British Medical Association warned the contract “threatens to undermine public trust in NHS data systems”, because it was unclear how the sensitive data would be processed by Palantir.
Ms Macalpine said: “There are widely-held concerns about the inadequate safeguards Palantir offers regarding the confidentiality of our personal health records.
“They claim they can anonymise data and that our personal data can't be used but the kind of anonymisation can be reversed and there is no opt out for patients.
"There has been a real failure to consult the public on this. “It is now up to the Homerton board of directors to decide how far our local hospital participates in Palantir's management of our data.
“It was very worrying that at the recent council of governors' meeting on 24 September, Tom Nettel, Homerton's deputy CEO, made no mention of Palantir's involvement in human rights abuses, or of the severe risks generally acknowledged by data experts arising from allowing Palantir access to our data.”
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 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, who included the firm in a report to the UN Security Council in July.
The Albanese report details Palantir’s close partnership with the IDF with which it has agreed a strategic partnership to assist its “war-related missions”.
Hackney Council will hold a scrutiny committee meeting on 14 October which will discuss the contract.
Independent Socialist councillor Claudia Turbet-Delof told the Citizen: “I’m glad to see the Federation Data Platform coming to the Health in Hackney scrutiny commission, as it is the role of the commission to provide an important opportunity for residents to hear items and also share concerns they might have - in this case, about how health data is collected, managed and protected.”
Speaking on behalf of the Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, a spokesperson said the trust will update its governors on its decisions at a future meeting.
He said: “If NHS England uses the FDP platform for the management of a trust’s performance in the future, the trust does need to engage with it in that context.”
Palantir has been approached for comment.
