
How Palantir embedded itself in the NHS - AndrewBissell
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/inside-story-cia-backed-palantir-embedded-nhs-socialite-running/
======
rvz
> So when the NHS revealed that Palantir was building emergency data mining
> tools to help Britain cope with the pandemic – for no fee – there were
> understandable reservations. What might be expected in return?

It has to be something more valuable than a 'fee', What could that possibly
be? I'll give you a huge hint.

We can recall what happened when DeepMind got involved with the NHS ~3 years
ago and the result was illegal [0] and now Google is taking over their
contracts [1]. There is only one thing that Palantir wants from this which is
more than just money.

[0] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/2139395-google-
deepmind...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2139395-google-deepminds-
nhs-data-deal-failed-to-comply-with-law/)

[1] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/2217939-google-is-
takin...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2217939-google-is-taking-over-
deepminds-nhs-contracts-should-we-be-worried/)

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dzaragozar
As per the guidelines, please use original title: How CIA-backed Palantir
embedded itself in the NHS

~~~
saagarjha
It may have been edited to remove extraneous information.

~~~
nothal
Is that objectively extraneous? I feel like it was not something I'd known
prior.

~~~
AndrewBissell
I used the original title, it was removed by a mod.

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hogFeast
Wow...there is a lot unsaid here.

Like Max Mosley..."former racing motor boss"...okay, that is what he is known
for :)

But we should probably call it what it is: corruption. For someone that is
supposedly assisting the govt, they seem to employ a hell of a lot of civil
servants from that inefficient govt...wonder why?

(This kind of corruption has completely exploded in the UK. It actually isn't
politicians either, it is mostly civil servants...as in, the "Nudge Unit" that
was spun out of govt and then won lots of contracts to do the exact same work
for double the price).

~~~
rjsw
TBF, Max Mosley isn't really involved in this, it is his nephew who is the
focus of the story.

The Telegraph just likes to pitch the idea that who your parents are is
important, if the story was in the Daily Mail it would tell you how much the
houses of anyone mentioned were worth.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Gotta make sure those Brits remember their class distinctions

------
olivermarks
'Some believe that it is access to NHS data, among the most lucrative data
sets in the world, that is the real attraction here'.

...“We must beware Palantir – and any other data mining company – bearing
gifts during a pandemic,” says Ioannis Kouvakas, legal officer at Privacy
International.

~~~
PaulWaldman
They may have access to it, but how can they monitize it beyond services
directly for the NHS? Is it wrong to assume that just having access to the
data does not mean Planatir can use it to benefit parties other than the NHS?

~~~
madaxe_again
Based on the parties involved here, it’ll be used to control the outcome of
elections to ensure the Tories keep in power forever. The guy running it,
Mosley, is the grandson of Oswald Mosley - founder and leader of the British
Union of Fascists - “Hooray for the blackshirts” and all that. He’s a “Tory
activist”, which basically means he would like to see a fascist white
ethnostate. I’m not exaggerating. This is who the Tories have become - the
party of brexit, of isolationism, of eugenics, of corrupt in-dealing,
arbitrary justice, and “hostile environments”.

Literally every name in there is someone associated with the far right.

There’s also prior form to this end - see the as yet unresolved and probably
never to be resolved hoo-hah over Cambridge analytica.

This smells like Cummings and his gang.

~~~
Angostura
> I’m not exaggerating

He said, exaggerating.

~~~
madaxe_again
No. I went to school with plenty of the clade now in power - one is a cabinet
minister, another just an MP, others are Tory activists or were Tory MPs until
the last election. The cabinet minister was the most profoundly racist and
bigoted person in my year. I won’t repeat the kind of slurs he routinely came
out with here, but I will say that he was kicked out of history, repeatedly,
for saying “they got what they deserved”, when discussing the holocaust. The
MP was suspended for a term for sexual assault. Yes, that’s anecdotal, but it
speaks of the character of the type of person attracted to their ideology.

In more concrete terms, if you look at what is being said, privately and
publicly, what is becoming policy, which dead cats are being thrown at the
press, it is extremely worrying.

~~~
Angostura
Feel free to name names

~~~
madaxe_again
I like breathing, so no.

My godfather spoke out against them a few years ago when told to preside over
a secret court. They destroyed him through the press. Cameron went on national
TV to condemn him for being a paedophile apologist, when he’s absolutely no
such thing, and the court transcripts from the supposed incident clearly show
that the remarks ascribed to him were actually made by a police constable. His
wife committed suicide in the aftermath, and his children fled the country as
they were being threatened by the public and hounded by the gutter press. He
is a shadow of the man he was.

So no. I won’t name names.

~~~
throwaway_pdp09
I can't find any relevant comment by cameron accusing/condemning anyone for
being a 'paedophile apologist'. Or anyone being a godfather so accused. It's
difficult to evaluate such accusations without more info, but it's equally
important to know this stuff if what you say is accurate. These are very
serious claims indeed.

------
mlthoughts2018
> “ Palantir was building emergency data mining tools to help Britain cope
> with the pandemic – for no fee”

Pure comedy that.

~~~
planck01
It's true. They work for free, because they really want to help you fix your
problem. Until you depend on them. The you'll have to pay as much as they
think you can pay.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
That’s not the problem. The problem is that the “free” work is absolutely not
free. You pay in several ways: giving them data, giving them knowledge of how
you approach data and analytics problem solving for your organization, giving
political connections and sunk cost hooks for them to gain a future contract.

And worst of all, reputation laundering. They can brag about “charitable” work
for a prestigious client, and try to whitewash the reality of how utterly
deplorable and morally sickening they are.

------
badrabbit
As someone that actually used palantir, they don't do magick. Splunk beats
them in every category for conventional data analysis.

They do however have an excellent grasp on ML. Let's say you have billions of
images,document images and documents (of any kind) they will search it better
than google can. They obviously do a lot more but the thing that makes them
shine is the UX. If you're a cop for example you put in a license plate and it
shows you all you need about the car,driver,history,correlations and analysis
of all entities and much more without the user being expected to know anything
technical at all(you can imagine what can be seen when someone puts in your IP
or phone#). They do a good job at linking documents and data points. I'm
afraid I don't know enough about off the shelf ML to make a good comparison.

I don't agree with Mr.Thiel but his logic is "if we don't do it,someone will".
And that's the idea behind in-q-tel (I'm sure HNers and the VC scene know that
name well). Thiel was also wrong about Trump, things are now worse off foe
everyone. America has just about lost her grasp on keeping the world
order,many trust relationships that kept peace and order since ww2 have been
ruined.

As far as their work, I don't think "someone else" would have done it,because
even if they did the quality may have been poorer. But I do agree the problem
is far more deep-rooted and sinister than it appears.

For a long time you could safely trust the IC to know and respect democracy
and the rule of law. But in recent times, they have violated every core
tenants of a legitimate rule of law and civil liberty. Keeping the nation
secure is not an excuse, if it is then any coup or subversion of elections can
be justified this way. Are they helping their country or hurting it?

The existence of palantir and in-q-tel is very natural. The problem is how the
IC and LEO communities as a whole have collectively lost sense of how
everything they do is by consent of the people. But moreover, they should be
on the people's side protecting rights and liberties. They stand as enemies of
our liberties, sophisticated stalkers that will break any law to stalk you and
control you all for your own good.

I think Mr. Thiel will regret his place in history. But it's very hard to
blame him or pala tir. It's like blaming the sharpness of a knife when someone
stabs you.

~~~
adjkant
I agree with your general take but I'm surprised by your last line.

> I think Mr. Thiel will regret his place in history. But it's very hard to
> blame him or Palantir. It's like blaming the sharpness of a knife when
> someone stabs you.

If Thiel actually wanted to help the problem, there are surely much better
ways than making Palantir. I think the "someone else will" logic is a thinly
veiled excuse to justify what he wants to do, for other reasons. I think he
100% made the world worse with what was done here, and deserves according
blame for that.

To replace your analogy, I would say he saw a stabbing about to happen and
instead of attempting to stop it, he decided to stab the person with a
slightly blunter knife. The analogy breaks here, but this could have been
thought on for years, and he couldn't think up any other solution to it, or
spend his time somewhere more worthwhile instead? Even a failed attempt to
stop the stabbing would have at least been understandable.

~~~
badrabbit
I wasn't saying he was right but that ultimate cause and blame is not pointed
at him. Much like the role IBM and BMW played when helping the Nazis. (Not
that I think the US IC is anywhere near as bad).

~~~
nelaboras
fundamental difference between a business being co-opted by an autocratic
state (do x or we take you over/arrest your families/...) and a business
choosing to create a certain product that they could simply not have created.

A better analogy might be a weapons company that chooses to make cluster
grenades or chemical weapons knowing that they are not ethical even as far as
weapons (machine learning) go, but it pays well..

~~~
badrabbit
IBM is american,they volunteered to help Germany before the US cared about WW2

------
djaychela
>One of the least sexy, yet most critical, challenges was integrating bits of
data from hospitals, laboratories and factories so that the Cabinet could get
a better grasp of how the virus was spreading – and make better decisions.

>For just over a month, the NHS has been using Palantir’s Foundry software to
bring together lab test results, hospital and supply chain data to see which
hospitals need beds, gear or ventilators.

Is this really true? We've been absolutely shambolic in the UK, and seem to be
heading to have the worst performance against the virus in the world - we
still seem to have a lot of cases each day, whereas Spain and Italy have
tailed off greatly. Either Palantir's help hasn't been much use, or we would
have been even worse off (and I'd be genuinely interested to know which,
although I know we'll never know what pies Palantir now has fingers into).

I'm afraid that our leaders have been shown up to mostly be completely out of
their depth, and we're going to pay a massive price as a result - as if the
looming of Brexit wasn't bad enough.

~~~
open-source-ux
The scale of ineptitude from this government is off the scale. Will this
government ever get its rekoning over its handling over the Coranavirus? Alas
no - our nasty, mostly right-wing national press will never subject the ruling
Conservative party to sufficient scrutiny to expose their failings.

This comedy video of Health Secretary Matt Hancok has gone viral, but you
can't laugh - it's painful to watch. These are the people in charge.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osgcTSVt7eU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osgcTSVt7eU)

~~~
growlist
Does <190k views over 10 days really count as going viral?

~~~
open-source-ux
It's been viewed widely on social media too. On twitter it has had 2.2m views:

[https://twitter.com/MrMichaelSpicer/status/12590315118918778...](https://twitter.com/MrMichaelSpicer/status/1259031511891877888)

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merricksb
[https://archive.md/9DpTM](https://archive.md/9DpTM)

~~~
tsjq
thank you.

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yters
I guess most people don't know how Sauron uses palantirs.

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_curious_
I thought HN frowned upon paywalled content?

