To the leadership of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB, the leadership of the upcoming Central East ICB, and the leadership of the NHS Trusts operating within these regions:
We, the undersigned NHS and social care employees and patients from across the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB region, and, where stated, the broader upcoming Central East ICB, write to express our deep concern at the rollout of the Federated Data Platform (FDP), and the supplier of this technology, Palantir.
We urge you to reject the adoption of the Federated Data Platform operated by Palantir as it poses a serious threat to NHS and trust values, undermines public health, medical ethics, patient trust, good data governance and fair procurement.
1. Palantir, the provider of the FDP, is complicit in human rights abuses, war crimes and genocide
Palantir is a US tech company which specialises in AI-powered military and surveillance technology and data analytics. Palantir describes its military technologies as offering customers “mission-tested capabilities, forged in the field.”
Palantir has a long history of using its technology to facilitate human rights abuses across the world. These actions violate the ethical principles on which our NHS is founded.
Palantir is currently supplying the Israeli military technology to support genocide related missions. Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp, is “exceedingly proud” of Palantir’s involvement in “operationally crucial operations in Israel,” keeping Israel “armed and ahead”.
On 23 June 2025 the British Medical Association voted to resist the rollout of the FDP based on the view that Palantir was an unacceptable partner for the NHS.
2. There are serious concerns about the data privacy, data management, and data ethics of the FDP as supplied by Palantir.
Many leading medical and data ethics experts have voiced alarm at the supposed safeguards put in place to protect patient data within the FDP, including the BMA, who wrote to the government last year arguing: “The public and the profession have not been adequately consulted and reassured, and the scope and scale of the programme do not appear to have been sufficiently established.” The lack of trust over how patient data would be handled gave the BMA concerns that it would fatally undermine the project.
3. We have serious concerns about the privatisation and outsourcing of health data management systems to corporations.
We have serious concerns that such an important NHS function as data management systems is being outsourced to a private company. Locking the NHS into a single monopoly supplier holds severe risks that senior leaders should be mindful of.
We are also concerned about the unhealthy web of cronyism that has led to Palantir's being awarded the FDP contract. It is known that two senior NHS officials took up jobs at Palantir in 2022. The public will be rightly alarmed to learn of Palantir founder Peter Theil's connections with Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Mandelson. During the COVID-19 pandemic Palantir were handed access to the NHS for just £1, in a contract that was awarded without competitive tender.
It is important to note that several trusts are rejecting Palantir’s FDP. It is not too late for the ICB and NHS Trusts to refuse to adopt Palantir’s FDP and its products.
Our requests to the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough ICB and NHS Trusts are as follows:
- Do not implement the FDP locally and pause any existing rollout plans
- Raise these concerns nationally and oppose the enforced rollout on all trusts
- Publicly and clearly communicate their position on the FDP
- Explain whether – and how – patients can opt out of including their data in the FDP