How Palantir is Stealing Your Data and What You Can Do About It
In the modern security state, information is power. Few companies embody that reality more completely than Palantir, the billion-dollar megacorporation doing it all. Their core belief is AI-powered automation for every decision. Growing from an organic startup to mapping our nation’s data, which now comprises two flagship software products: Gotham and Foundry. Gotham is primarily designed for government, defence, and intelligence, with a focus on surveillance, threat detection, and tactical operations. In contrast, Foundry focuses on the commercial and civil sectors, enabling data integration and operational analytics for enterprise, industrial, and other use cases. Meet the face of global surveillance.
Palantir Pavilion, World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland via Cory Doctorow/Flickr
A former Palantir employee, who worked with Gotham, shared some intriguing insights with WIRED. In mere minutes, law enforcement officials can piece together a comprehensive map of an individual's network, unveiling connections that might otherwise remain hidden. Gotham allows them to consolidate a wealth of information about a person into a single, detailed report. This includes everything from their eye colour, pulled directly from their driver’s license, to their license plate number from a traffic citation. The platform also offers powerful search capabilities, enabling officials to filter individuals based on specific traits—be it their immigration status, state of residence, or even unique characteristics like tattoos.
They work with an exhaustive list of sectors, including healthcare, finance, energy, aviation, retail, and manufacturing. Some frightening examples of their business partners include the Department of Defence, the CIA, ICE, JPMorgan, Wendy’s, and the World Food Programme. The issue at hand is whether we are consciously deciding to share our data with an increasingly data-driven and profit-oriented system, or if we feel a lack of control as this system seeks to dominate all aspects of our lives.
Describing Palantir can be a real puzzle, even for those who have been part of the team. Many former Palantir employees have expressed to WIRED that they feel the public generally misunderstands the company's operations and the functionality of its software. Some believe that Palantir acts as a data broker, purchasing information from private companies to resell to the government. Others perceive it as a data miner that continuously scans the internet for unique insights to collect and market to customers.
Starting small and secretive in 2003, it was created to find predictions to prevent another attack like September 11th. The birth of Palantir. Peter Thiel, the mastermind behind it all, designed it to be skilled at pattern recognition, launching software that sweeps through your data, such as Social Security, healthcare records, employment history, and voter data. The proximity of the CIA and Palantir’s relationship can be seen as a second cousin. A year after its formation, in 2004, Palantir gained its first investor: In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. They were sceptical, but provided the start-up capital of roughly $2 million.
Peter Thiel, one of the co-founders of Palantir, via CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Palantir publicly opened and started selling its shares only in September 2023 and is now valued at $346.97 billion. Numbers that cannot even attempt to be physicalised, which only exist as a simulacra. Having experienced an unprecedented market cap rise, by a seismic 23 times, it is rumoured to soon become a part of the Fortune 500.
Information is a currency far greater than the dollar or any tangible asset; it enables the prediction of human behaviour and preferences. In this context, CEO Alex Karp's assertion that "it is a tool for weaponisation and to kill" takes on a chilling significance. Palantir, named after the all-seeing orbs from The Lord of the Rings, has indeed evolved to fulfil its intended purpose of surveillance. What began as a platform aimed at counterintelligence has swiftly transformed into a tool for global surveillance. This shift is further underscored by Palantir's strong ties with Israel, particularly through its work with the Israel Defence Force (IDF), which frequently employs the Gotham software.
The potential of such technology is immense, allowing for autonomous drone operations executed by machine learning algorithms. Such developments illustrate a broader trend that theorist Shoshana Zuboff describes as "surveillance capitalism." In this economic system, value is not derived from labour but rather extracted from individual behaviours. Every click, search, and purchase becomes raw material for sophisticated algorithms designed to predict and influence future actions. Essentially, as individuals navigate the digital world, they unwittingly provide a surplus of data that fuels this relentless cycle, often while engaging in commonplace activities like scrolling through social media or browsing websites. This reality raises critical concerns about data integrity and individual autonomy in a landscape increasingly dominated by powerful data-driven entities. Bruce Schneier, a cryptographer, computer scientist, and author, coined it perfectly. Surveillance is the internet's business model.
Palantir's ability to harness the power of speed, its velocity of growth, and information capabilities is what makes this a horrifying prospect. The effect of this is the degradation of democracy and our privacy. According to the New York Times, the Trump administration has significantly broadened Palantir’s role within the federal government. Palantir has reaped over $113 million in federal spending since Trump’s inauguration. This amount doesn’t even cover the staggering $795 million contract the Department of Defence awarded to Palantir, which remains unspent. The growing partnership between Palantir and the government highlights a pivotal shift in how technology is being leveraged for national security and federal operations.
Donald Trump speaking at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbour, Maryland via CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
It's important to note how information systems work. One might argue that our data is already in a specific state database, that the entirety of our information is already available to the state at large. This framing is incorrect. It presupposes that the state is a single entity able to access specific data at will. Information systems are much more fragmented, and that's on purpose. The Social Security Administration will not have access to the same data as the Department of Health and Human Services. It's the centralisation that changes everything. And the horror of this conundrum is twofold. The state now has access to a single executive database to pull from. And now it's not just the state. A third-party and private entity, Palantir, owns the keys.
But not all hope is lost. We create new data every day, and much of it is under our control. As individuals, we hold significant power in controlling the data that private entities collect from us, and there are several steps we can take to safeguard our privacy. One effective strategy is to become mindful of the information we share online and consciously limit our digital footprint. This can involve using fake names instead of real names on social media platforms and sign-up forms, which protects our identities from being easily traced. Additionally, we can use temporary or disposable email addresses when subscribing to services or websites to prevent our primary email from being inundated with unsolicited communications.
By being selective with the personal information we provide, such as using random addresses instead of our actual locations, we can further complicate data collection efforts by corporations that thrive on tracking user behaviour. Moreover, utilising privacy-focused tools like virtual private networks (VPNs) and browser extensions that block trackers can enhance our online security. Ultimately, by adopting these practices, we can take charge of our data and push back against the pervasive surveillance of large-scale tech platforms, fostering a safer and more private digital experience. As individuals, we can still control what data private entities collect from us.