STRIKING junior doctors and pro-Palestine activists blockaded the London headquarters of Israeli-linked spy tech giant Palantir today after it was awarded £330 million to provide a new NHS data platform.
Hundreds of protesters gathered in Soho Square to voice their anger over public funding indirectly subsidising Israel’s massacring of civilians in Gaza amid concerns over how the US firm will use patient data.
Holding placards reading: “Palantir aids apartheid,” they accused the firm of being “complicit” in war crimes.
A nurse and member of Health Workers for a Free Palestine said: “We’re here to blockade and disrupt Palantir’s blood-soaked business and we will continue mobilising until NHS England agrees to keep our NHS data out of bloodstained hands.”
A junior doctor member of the British Medical Association (BMA) added: “This Palantir deal exemplifies the asset-stripping of our health service, which is being used to line the pockets of private companies while the NHS faces chronic underfunding and junior doctors like me who are currently on strike are suffering a real-terms pay cut.
“We are calling on the NHS to cancel its contract with this Gaza war profiteer, ensure no other complicit companies are awarded contracts, bring data management back in-house and stop selling our NHS services for corporate profits.”
British-Palestinian human rights researcher Alia Al Ghussain, whose uncle was killed by an Israeli air strike on Gaza City, said: “Palantir provides intelligence and surveillance services to the Israeli military, including a form of predictive policing.
“That’s not just going to affect people in Gaza but those in the West Bank, which is under occupation and has seen a huge rise in violence since October 7,” when the current Israel-Hamas war began.
Palantir was co-founded by billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, who was an early backer of former president Donald Trump and has worked with the US government.
NHS England has said that “no company involved in the Federated Data Platform can access health and care data without the explicit permission of the NHS.”
Last month, Steve Brine, the Tory chairman of the Commons health and social care committee, said there were “substantial concerns” about the company’s involvement with the NHS.
It was announced earlier this year that a group led by the firm had secured the contract to provide the new NHS Federated Data Platform.
Louis Mosley, Palantir’s executive vice-president for Britain and Europe, has previously defended the company’s involvement in the NHS.
Palantir was contacted for comment.
