By Lucas Amin and Sam Gelder
Five police forces in the East Midlands working with Palantir on a controversial surveillance programme are ending their involvement, after the regional unit running the pilot decided not to take it forward, Democracy for Sale and Liberty Investigates can reveal.
Twelve of the 43 police forces in England and Wales have been using a Palantir “real-time data sharing” tool called Project Nectar, which campaigners say could lead to “indiscriminate mass surveillance”.
The five forces - Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire - were part of a two-year Project Nectar pilot run by the East Midlands Special Operations Unit (EMSOU).
The move is a setback for Palantir. The US defence tech firm founded by Trump donor Peter Thiel is currently suing after London Mayor Sadiq Khan blocked a deal between the Metropolitan Police and Palantir worth £50m in May.
Palantir launched Project Nectar in 2023 to “help police improve how they tackle crime”, the company said, by organising data which forces already hold more effectively.
Many details remain confidential, but internal police documents suggest this included creating a “unified view” of data on people’s race, religion, sex life, political opinions and genetic information.
The Project Nectar pilot explored the use of “data federation” — the joining-up of different databases and a key selling point of Palantir — as well as “AI in policing” and “advanced analytics”. The costs of the pilot were paid by the Home Office but not disclosed.
We asked EMSOU why the deal was not taken forward, but it would not be drawn on details.
“We have taken the decision to not take this project further,” said Ian Green, regional assistant chief constable for the unit. This followed “scoping work,” consideration of “funding streams” and an “assessment of what it would deliver,” he added.
Liberal Democrat MP Martin Wrigley told us that he was “delighted to see that police forces have seen through the sales sheen of Palantir, and concluded that they aren’t as good as they think they are”.
“The NHS should sit up and take notice and not renew their contract,” Wrigley added, in reference to Palantir’s controversial work for the NHS.
Palantir’s involvement in Britain’s public sector has emerged as a major issue for prime minister Andy Burnham. The US firm has been criticised for providing software for Donald Trump’s ICE immigration raids and the Israeli military’s “war-related missions” in Gaza.
This week Palantir hired Labour’s former deputy leader Tom Watson in an effort to shore up support for its British public services work.
Seven forces in the east of England have also been using Project Nectar under a separate “rolling pilot” led by Bedfordshire Police, which has spent £3.6m on the project, according to procurement analysts Tussell.
The exact aims and operational status of the project remain unclear but internal documents show that Bedfordshire wanted Palantir to combine crime records and other intelligence sources to create profiles of individuals including suspects and those “about to commit a criminal offence”.
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who sits on the home affairs committee, said “the decision of a growing number of police forces to ditch Palantir shows that, contrary to the claims of proponents, the company is simply not delivering success on its own stated terms or value for money on contracts.”
Palantir faces growing scrutiny over its wider UK public-sector business. Its £330m NHS Federated Data Platform contract is due for renewal in February, while two parliamentary committees have recommended the government consider using a break clause.
Internal NHS documents obtained by Democracy for Sale describe Palantir’s software as “slow and clunky” with a “poor user experience”.
Palantir did not respond to a request for comment. The company has said that Project Nectar’s software “does not involve the acquisition of any data that the customer in question doesn’t already hold – it simply organises that data in a way that enables faster, better decision-making.”
Democracy for Sale is dedicated to uncovering dark money and hidden influence. We are currently working on major new investigations and taking the government to court to force the release of key documents about Palantir’s NHS work.
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Selling has always been a US strength. Living up to the sales blurb has always been questionable.
It's what's technically known as "vapourware".
The salesmen listen to what the customer thinks they want, promises them the package can deliver almost that (but maybe there's some development work to do) & then goes back to the engineers & tells them what the software has to do.
It's always been a recipe for disaster, and that really ought to be common knowledge among management types.
I had some fun just before I retired, explaining to social work managers & staff what would happen when the department decided to buy a new package to replace the one we'd developed in house.
I watched the first attempt from salesmen crash & burn, and then left, satisfied that I'd left a decent legacy & earned my pension.
It took about 6 years for the effect to wear off so senior managers could spend a fortune on something shiny & new.
And the shiny new package never delivered what was needed.