'Not Just Another Tech Company': Unions, Rights Groups Across EU Demand Governments Ditch Palantir

A large coalition of labor unions and rights groups across Europe on Sunday demanded governments end their relationships with US tech company Palantir, which they described as a threat to democracy and civil liberties.

A joint statement from over 120 groups—including Corporate Europe Observatory, Global Justice Now, and the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU)—says Palantir's actions should "disqualify it from involvement in the operations and functioning of democratic governments."

Among other things, the statement cites Palantir's technical support for "predictive policing" in US cities, its supply of data mining tools to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and its work with the Israeli military, whose brutal years-long assault on Gaza has killed at least 74,000 Palestinians.

The statement also highlights the danger of governments relying on "a class of tech billionaires" to deliver public safety services, which they argue could lead to corporate capture of sovereign nations.

The groups are demanding that European governments cancel all current contracts with Palantir while permanently barring the firm from receiving future public contracts.

Scholars of authoritarianism earlier this year expressed alarm after Palantir posted a 22-point manifesto that they said espouses a “technofascist” doctrine.

Among other things, the manifesto hails the creation of artificial intelligence-powered weapons as tools to enforce American “hard power” around the world; declares that “national service should be a universal duty,” while suggesting the US should “seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force”; and denounces the embrace of “a vacant and hollow pluralism” on the grounds that some cultures “remain dysfunctional and regressive.”

Tim Bierley, campaign manager at Global Justice Now, said that Palantir's leadership has shown "apparent disdain... for democracy," but has still "been allowed to embed dubious technologies across our public services, giving it access to sensitive data and creating worrying new technical dependencies."

"The UK must work with other countries to end dependence on companies involved in human rights abuses," Bierley added, "and end the outsourcing of the public sphere to a dangerous class of big tech oligarchs."

Olivier Hoedeman, research and campaign coordinator at Corporate Europe Observatory, warned that "Palantir is not just another tech company selling governments a piece of software," but is rather being woven "into the machinery of the state, creating deep dependencies while giving a private company a far too powerful role in how governments process sensitive information and make decisions."

"This is a recipe for corporate capture of public infrastructure and decision-making," Hoedeman emphasized. "A company whose technologies are implicated in serious human rights abuses should not be allowed to become an integral part of Europe’s public infrastructure."

Jan Willem Goudriaan, general secretary of EPSU, singled out Palantir's tax avoidance schemes as a reason for European nations to scrap all ties with the company.

"Europe must stop rewarding public contracts to corporations that do not share public service values," said Goudriaan. "The European Parliament must fix this. It is unacceptable to keep feeding corporations with public money while they minimize their tax bills in the middle of a public services emergency. Every euro shifted offshore means fewer nurses, teachers or firefighters."