“A £50m Met police deal with the controversial US tech company Palantir has been blocked by the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, with City Hall citing a ‘clear and serious breach’ of procurement rules,” reports the Guardian. Khan’s office said the Met had seriously engaged with only one supplier in the bid and the proposed deal had not “ensured or demonstrated value for money”.

The Mayor’s decision focused on the technical aspects of the proposed deal, but his spokesperson added that Londoners wanted to see public money being paid only to companies that “share the values of our city”.

The US-based surveillance company Palantir was founded by Trump-supporting tech billionaire Peter Thiel. It has been the focus of a huge amount of activist campaigning due to its work with the controversial US immigration force ICE and its links to the Israeli military. Palantir has supplied Israel with AI-powered surveillance and targeting technology during its genocide in Gaza — tools used to identify and strike homes and moving vehicles. It is alleged that the company is thereby facilitating Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.

Palantir already has more than £600m in contracts with Britain’s NHS, the Ministry of Defence, the Financial Conduct Authority and several smaller police forces.

“Our government has no qualms about employing Palantir – a company without ethical values, no commitment to public health, privacy or public wellbeing – to manage the data of UK citizens on such a scale,” argued Martin Franklin on this site recently. “It also sees no problem with increasing the concentration of government data in the servers of a foreign defence company.” He further emphasised that Palantir’s expansion is connected to the privatisation of public services.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have signed petitions calling on ministers to break contracts with Palantir, including its £330m deal to help operate a patient and medical data platform for NHS England. MPs have attacked the deal as ‘dreadful’ and ‘shameful’,” reports the Guardian.

Welcoming Mayor Khan’s move, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: “Palantir supplies Israel with AI and surveillance technology used in its genocide in Gaza. It should not receive a penny of public money.”

It added: “Alongside blocking this contract, the Mayor must now intervene to cancel the existing £500k Met Police contract to use Palantir technology in the force’s ‘professional service function’ signed in February. The British gov must act to cancel all contracts with Palantir, including NHS England’s £330million contract to develop and maintain the Federated Data Platform to store patient medical data, which is opposed by health workers, patients and human rights groups.”

Momentum said: “Palantir is a Trump-aligned tech firm complicit in war crimes in Gaza and mass deportations in the US. It should be not used in our public services. Sadiq Khan made the right decision.”

Call on the Government to cancel all contracts with Palantir: sign the petition.

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