Palantir, and Its Ongoing Controversy
Why does this company deserve so much attention?
Are you aware of Palantir? The company that began at the corner of Silicon Valley in 2004 and struggled to find initial funding has now evolved into a large-cap company that offers stability and lucrative long-term investments. Due to its close partnership with the government and projects heavily relying on consumers’ data, this influential and yet mysterious tech firm has created uncertainty and thus criticism. This article will walk you through a brief introduction of Palantir and the reasons behind the company’s numerous controversies.
What is Palantir?
Palantir Technologies Inc. builds software platforms for institutions. Instead of using personal data to train proprietary AI or machine learning models to share or resell to customers, Palantir parachutes coders into clients’ headquarters to customize programs and software interfaces to detect correlations between datasets and further predict future trends within relevant industries.
However, the low-profile nature of this mysterious company, along with the recent scandals of technology firms distributing private data without consent, i.e., Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, has led the public to question the integrity and responsibilities of these tech giants who possess too much of the private data of our daily routines. Two main reasons why Palantir is heavily criticized compared to its peers are as the following: 1) non-transparent nature due to the confidentiality of client contracts, 2) potential profits and risks created by utilizing the data at hand are beyond perception.
The Importance of Data
Why does everyone care so much about who is in charge of the data nowadays? In a hyper-connected ecosystem, supply and demand, individuals’ tendencies, and businesses’ behaviors can all be traced back and evaluated with the integration and interpretation of data. The advancement in machine learning has equipped these tech firms with the ability to infer from both structured and unstructured information and predict the actions of users to subtly provide suitable, even persuasive contents. Thus, keeping a large database at hand allows technology entities to control factors that could dictate a trend. Palantir, based purely on its data software, resembles a power that big technology firms hold while bringing more potential risks due to its dramatically different data and client sources.
Palantir’s Controversies
1. Non-transparent nature due to the confidentiality of client contracts
Palantir releases three main products: Gotham, Foundry, and Apollo. The former two are targeted towards national security and commercial purposes, respectively, while the third is a continuous delivering system that powers the two platforms.
Gotham is the tool used by counter-terrorism analysts, fraud investigators for crime prediction in CIA, FBI, multiple US Police Departments, and even the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Foundry, on the other hand, focuses on analyzing time-series data and inferring predictions for commercial usages. Although these data cannot be easily exposed to third parties for the sake of public safety and corresponding stakeholders’ profits, the confidentiality may lead to public’s uncertainty in Palantir’s power. As the potential impact of data is mentioned above, even if Palantir is being non-transparent for justifiable reasons, they fail to express interest in resolving the criticism.
2. Potential profits and risks created by utilizing the data at hand are beyond perception.
Large-Scale Data for Large-Population Problems
While gaining access to sensitive personal health data from the H.H.S. incurs concerns from some Democrats and privacy advocates, Palantir actually built two beneficial models, namely Tiberius and HHS Protect, to streamline the manufacture and distribution of vaccines, easing the pressure created by Covid-19. Specifically, Palantir developed these comprehensive models using its Foundry software that takes in data from federal agencies, state and local governments, drug makers, distributors, and others involved with Covid-19 vaccines. Interestingly, the methodologies in creating this Covid-prevention model originated from its other software for the United Nations World Food Program to direct food to where it is needed. In light of an extreme pandemic or global food crisis, granting Palantir the power to take charge of this information for the sake of the whole society should be necessary. However, we should maintain a vigorous supervision system to ensure the confidentiality of healthcare data as the consequence of misusing it could be appalling.
Additionally, Palantir’s flagship program Gotham makes crime and hazard prediction possible. Being able to integrate and analyze pieces of data from the U.S. spy agencies, Palantir’s “forward-deployed engineers” could elucidate issues as distinct as terrorism, human trafficking, and disaster signals. While there are limited statistics to back up the effectiveness of the software, societies would benefit from the system significantly once the application of machine learning turns out to be insightful.
The debate of privacy issues can be inferred from its long-lasting collaboration with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). To track and monitor the suspects and the convicts, officers in LAPD were told to add names to Palantir Gotham, which then build up a vast database that “indiscriminately lists the names, addresses, phone numbers, license plates, friendships, romances, jobs of city residents, regardless of whether they were under any suspicion of committing a crime”. How this private database could be utilized by Palantir brings uncertainty to many, infusing concerns about their power.
Finally, Palantir’s alleged dealings with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been particularly controversial. A report from Mijente shows that the technology firm is taking lucrative contracts with ICE and playing an indispensable role in Trump’s deportation scheme. Even though Palantir is executing the ruling party’s policy, the massive power and information could bring out moral issues which would contradict international human rights standards. It is convinced that Palantir has no power to take charge of this sensitive information and terrorize the immigrant community.
***Cambridge Analytica, was criticized for using personal information from Facebook without authorization to build a system that could expose personalized political advertisement to individual U.S. voters.
End Note
In conclusion, this article walks you through the ongoing controversies associated with Palantir. How exactly does one company resolve the criticisms of holding private information remains a question worth thinking about.
