Tech-justice outfit Foxglove has issued a lawsuit on behalf of news site openDemocracy over a National Health Services deal with the controversial big data firm Palantir Technologies.
The lawsuit claims that NHS England failed to consider the impact of the deal on patients and the public by performing a fresh Data Protection Impact Assessment.
Foxglove founding director Cori Crider and openDemocracy editor in chief, Mary Fitzgerald, warned that it could damage the future of the NHS.
“The government has a legal duty to consult us, citizens and NHS users, before they strike massive deals which affect that future. In doing so, they need to take important steps (like conducting ‘data protection impact assessments’) to ensure our health information and our rights are protected”, Crider and Fitzgerald said.
Palantir – originally funded, in part, by the CIA – has faced criticism and mistrust for its work, including its ties to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Last year, the US Department of Health and Human Services awarded Palantir multiple contracts as part of its COVID-19 response plan.
NHS England followed suit, striking a two-year, £23.5 million contract in December for Palantir to provide it with “data management platform services”. The contract followed an initial trial period starting in March, which involved Palantir’s Foundry software being used to power the NHS’s COVID-19 data store.
Foxglove said that the two-year contract extends “to Brexit, general business planning and much more”.
An NHS spokesperson told Sky News that “the company is an accredited supplier to the UK public sector, the NHS completed a Data Protection Impact Assessment in April 2020, and an update will be published in due course”.
“Striking quiet deals with firms like Palantir, especially with no real public dialogue, risks demolishing trust in the NHS among the very communities where the government now urgently seeks to shore up trust”, wrote Crider and Fitzgerald.
