Ministers clearly have a lack of understanding of Palantir’s technology. The statements with respect to sovereign data appear to be missing the point entirely. [They’re] missing the realities of data scraping, of aggregation, and the fact that Palantir is building its own rich picture of our nation that they can use for their own ends.
Allowing a single entity, foreign or domestic, to have such far-reaching, pervasive access is inherently dangerous. How our national cybersecurity centre has allowed this beggars belief.
Whether or not the UK technically owns the data is almost irrelevant. That’s like reading a secret love letter and saying the secrets in it are safe, just because you’ve promised never to copy it word for word or take it out of the room.
When you have that mosaic built from UK sovereign defence, health, roads, power networks, power stations, and our major industrial bases, you have a detailed understanding of virtually every aspect of the sovereign United Kingdom. For an adversary, or even a nation with whom we have a special relationship, that picture is worth more than all the fine art on Earth.
