Palantir: Public Service Contracts
Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Chakrabarti(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Chakrabarti
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the human rights and reputational risks presented by their public service contracts with Palantir.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)
My Lords, government departments operate within a robust procurement and assurance framework, ensuring that contracts are awarded only where requirements are met and no exclusion grounds apply. Palantir’s software is used globally across public and private sectors. Within the UK Government, its use is governed through established legal and assurance frameworks. In defence, Palantir supports data integration and AI-enabled analysis, providing timely insights that improve operational planning, decision-making and effectiveness.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am perennially grateful to my noble friend. If we are to avoid a future Fujitsu-style scandal of even greater proportions, how can our public money, personal data, national security and reputation be safe in the hands of a company credibly implicated in gross human rights violations, both in Gaza and ICE operations in the United States?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My noble friend is quite right to challenge the Government on these incredibly important issues around human rights and how the Government establish their contracts. To be clear about the UK Government, we are talking about a relationship and contracts that are negotiated with Palantir UK. The contracts that we operate with Palantir UK have strict protocols in place. We retain full ownership and sovereign authority over all defence data, including how it is stored, how it is accessed and how it is used. Contracts with suppliers include legally enforceable provisions to ensure that data sovereignty is maintained. I understand the points that my noble friend raises, but with respect to our contracts with Palantir UK, we ensure that the correct provisions are in place.
Afghanistan
Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Chakrabarti(1 year ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and others, the last Government acted in good faith in a way that they believed would protect people who had been put at risk by the data breach. They also went to the court for an injunction. The court itself granted a super-injunction, the thrust of which was to try to protect people from the consequences of having their names inadvertently put into the public domain. The previous Government did that. When we came to power, we decided that we needed to look at this to see whether it was still proportionate and how we should act. On the basis of the Rimmer review, we changed that. I sometimes wonder what the consequences would have been for any Government had that happened and lots of people had been killed.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, the logic behind the basic injunction to protect these vulnerable people in the wake of a catastrophic data breach is understandable and the application is laudable; the super-injunction is less so. Is my noble friend the Minister able to open up a little more? Has he been briefed on the rationale behind the super-injunction, or at least on the Government of the day not applying some time ago, if not immediately, for the super-injunction, which did not protect the sensitive data but the fact that there was a breach? What was the rationale for not seeking to suspend the super-injunction? That is where the constitutional concern lies, for the then and future Government.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I understand my noble friend’s point. I respond with trepidation, because I do not want to get into a legal discussion with her, as her legal knowledge is far greater than mine.
My understanding was that the previous Government asked for an injunction and then the court decided, on the basis of what it was told, that it was necessary for there to be a super-injunction. That was granted by the courts because of the threat that people faced. It was then renewed over a period of time. In the summer of 2024, the High Court suspended the injunction and gave the last Government 21 days to appeal. The Government appealed and the Appeal Court allowed the reimposition of the super-injunction. I can only presume that that was on the basis that the court was persuaded that the threat still existed for those whose data had been inadvertently put into the public domain.
On the basis of knowledge we accumulated over a few months, we decided to undertake the Rimmer review, which gave us the evidence to go back to the court and say that we no longer believed that the injunction was necessary for the protection of those individuals. The court accepted the Government’s new evidence, from the report, that the super-injunction was not necessary. At 12 pm yesterday, the injunction was lifted, and at 12.30 pm, my right honourable friend the Defence Secretary made a Statement in the other place, and we have come here today to make a Statement, which I have no doubt will be the first of many.