The US spy tech company Palantir has been in talks with the Ministry of Justice about using its technology to calculate prisoners’ “reoffending risks”, it has emerged.
The proposals emerged in correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act which showed how the company has also been lobbying new UK government ministers, including the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
Amnesty International is among the organisations expressing concern about the expanding role Palantir is attempting to carve out after it was controversially awarded a multimillion-pound contract with the NHS last year.
The prisons minister, James Timpson, received a letter three weeks after the general election from a Palantir executive who said the firm was one of the world’s leading software companies, and was working at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI).
Palantir had been in talks with the MoJ and the Prison Service about how “secure information sharing and data analytics can alleviate prison challenges and enable a granular understanding of reoffending and associated risks”, the executive added.
The discussions, which started under the Conservative government, are understood to have included proposals by Palantir to analyse prison capacity, and to use data held by the state to understand trends relating to reoffending. This would be based on aggregating data to identify and act on trends, factoring in drivers such as income or addiction problems. Lord Timpson did not respond to the letter.
A Palantir spokesperson said: “Advanced software that automatically integrates data could provide a single, constantly updating source of truth for prison capacity across the UK – helping to maximise the use of finite prison spaces. This kind of solution has parallels with how our software supported the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, where it provided a clear, real-time picture of takeup at a local, regional and national level.”
However, Amnesty International UK’s business and human rights director, Peter Frankental, has expressed concern. “It’s deeply worrying that Palantir is trying to seduce the new government into a so-called brave new world where public services may be run by unaccountable bots at the expense of our rights,” he said. “Labour faces the serious challenge of ensuring digital technologies are used in line with human rights, including protecting people’s privacy, right to equality, non-discrimination and data protection.
“Ministers need to push back against any use of artificial intelligence in the criminal justice, prison and welfare systems that could lead to people being discriminated against, unfairly targeted and other miscarriages of justice. The Post Office scandal is a stark warning of what can happen when digital technologies are considered infallible.”
Concerns about Palantir have been compounded by the political role played by its co-founder and chair, Peter Thiel, a major Silicon Valley supporter of Donald Trump, as well as a backer and former employer of the vice-president-elect, JD Vance. Thiel once wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Other letters released to the Guardian reveal that Palentir’s co-founder and chief executive, Alexander Karp, wrote to ministers including Reeves, asking to meet to discuss how to help drive growth and use of its products at government departments.
Karp is a self-described “socialist” but has spoken of Palantir being a counter to “woke” companies and is known for making provocative statements, claiming the company believed “the west is a superior way to live”.
This was reflected in a letter Karp wrote to the science minister, Peter Kyle, telling him: “Our company was founded to help strengthen critical institutions across the west.”
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As with Reeves, Karp sought to meet Kyle to discuss “harnessing AI to deliver the next generation of technology-enabled public services across HMG”.
Karp told Reeves that the company employed nearly 1,000 software engineers in London, its European office for AI, and anticipated opening another office elsewhere in Britain soon. Palantir wrote to other ministers including the chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, and the trade minister Douglas Alexander.
Kyle and Reeves have not met Palantir during their time as ministers, according to the government, while other ministers lobbied by the company do not appear to have responded. Others in Labour have been deeply uneasy about the company’s links with the party, particularly with its Blairite wing.
The Labour backbencher Clive Lewis said he was concerned that “big corporate entities” such as Palantir were trying to become integral parts of providing public services.
“We are inviting in a highly extractive corporate entity which is always going to act in its own interests first, not what would ultimately be the interests of the NHS or other public services. You can go down a science-fiction route but iyou ultimately where will it leave us?” Lewis said.
“It feels to me as if there is pressure for this Labour government to deliver growth at all costs. My fear is that it will lead us into taking shortcuts to deliver that growth at a rapid rate and we may regret what we have done.”
