London mayor may move to block a Met Police deal with Palantir

London’s Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, may reportedly try to block the Metropolitan police from buying an AI tool from authoritarian US tech firm Palantir. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office stated that Khan had:

concerns about using public money to support firms who act contrary to London’s values.

Back on 22 April, the Guardian reported that Palantir was in talks with the Met police to supply AI tools for use in criminal investigations. The talks sparked concerns within the force itself over allowing the shady tech company access to sensitive data.

‘We don’t need £100m AI’

As the Canary has previously reported, other police forces have already struck contracts with Palantir. However, the Met would be by far the largest and most prominent in the UK to do so. However, this potentially multimillion-pound deal has met opposition within the force itself.

In particular, the issues relate to allowing the deeply unethical company access to highly sensitive data. This could include otherwise-confidential intelligence on criminal activities, and even victims’ personal information. Other concerns relate to the potential waste of public money, with one anonymous source stating:

We don’t need £100m AI. We would like the more basic systems we already have to work properly.

Beyond this, there are also massive issues with the use of AI for policing in general. Whilst AI decision-making is perceived as unbiased and emotionless, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Rather, it simply obscures—and replicates—the human biases present within its training dataset.

Mayoral scrutiny

However, the potential Met-Palantir contract isn’t a done deal just yet. Let’s assume—probably quite safely—the massive ethical issue with the tech company won’t put off the Met police. Even so, the deal would still need to make it past the mayor’s office.

This is because anything the Met wants to spend more than £500,000 on has to face the scrutiny of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. A spokesperson explained that the office would consider the data security of London’s populace in its decision, along with any potential technical, financial, legal issues.

It’s here that Khan could exert his influence — particularly if he refuses to grant approval. However, the mayor’s spokesperson didn’t volunteer any details:

We can’t comment on live procurement processes. However, as a general point the mayor would have concerns about using public money to support firms who act contrary to London’s values.

Of course, whether Palantir is actually “contrary to London’s values” is another matter. The capital is by far the most-surveilled city in Europe, with some studies suggesting that for every 10 people, there is one CCTV camera.

Palantir – the genocidal choice

Still, we’d like to hope that Palantir is a step too far even for the UK’s panopticon-cum-capital.

The distinctly amoral tech giant has supplied AI tools to the Israeli military and Trump’s murderous anti-immigrant militia, ICE. As the Good Law Project previously reported:

Palantir has worked with US agencies accused of separating children from their parents, wrongfully detaining thousands of US citizens and forcibly sterilising women. The day after Israel was accused of genocide at the International Criminal Court, the company signed a deal with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to provide “support for war-related missions”. And Palantir’s predictive policing project in LA was cancelled in 2019 after accusations that it entrenched racism and didn’t reduce crime.

The company also boasted that AI technology doubled the pace of attacks over the opening days of the war on Iran. This sparked fears among employees that they were responsible for the US bombing of an Iranian girls school, an attack which murdered at least 175 individuals.

Almost inevitably, Palantir is also embroiled in the scandal surrounding disgraced ex-US ambassador Peter Mandelson’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Global Counsel, a lobbying firm which works for Palantir, just happened to be co-owned by Mandelson.

Despite the adverse media, the tech firm still holds £600m in contracts with UK public bodies. These extend from the Ministry of Defence to law enforcement, and even to the NHS — and they’re a growing scandal for the Labour government.

For his part, Khan has previously failed London on police failures. As such, we can only hope that the Labour mayor shows a shred of moral fibre and blocks the Met’s contract with Palantir.

Featured image via the Canary