| ▲ | New York City hospitals drop Palantir as controversial AI firm expands in UK(theguardian.com) |
| 205 points by chrisjj 3 hours ago | 51 comments |
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| ▲ | tombert 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| It seems like letting a company like Palantir anywhere near private medical data is a pretty bad idea. I am happy NYC is doing this. |
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| ▲ | Manuel_D an hour ago | parent [-] | | Palantir builds software that customers use to work with their own data. Custody of the data remains with the customer. This is like saying a hospital that uses Excel is handing over data to Microsoft. | | |
| ▲ | Lucasoato 32 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | This isn’t accurate, Palantir business model includes mass surveillance for military/security purposes; if a company is concerned with privacy should think twice before handling it to Palantir, even if with all the assurances they might give in terms of data governance. | | |
| ▲ | basket_horse 22 minutes ago | parent [-] | | This is like saying a Swiss bank would share your secrets because shady people use Swiss banks. No. Confidentiality is literally built into their business model. Getting caught sharing customer data is one of the fastest ways for their business to crumble. | | |
| ▲ | fzeroracer 16 minutes ago | parent [-] | | How many times are we gonna have to see businesses get caught sharing customer data before we learn to not just trust them? |
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| ▲ | catoc 25 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You’re calling people who critique Palantir “borderline Q-Anon” ? While you yourself think Palantir’s products are “like Excel” ? They are not.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blam... | |
| ▲ | pvtmert an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | while I understand the meaning here, modern Excel does handover data to Microsoft (via Copilot)... | | |
| ▲ | OJFord an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | And 365 (I'm sure there is an on-premises version, but when not). | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Users choose whether to use Copilot, and are free to decline it's use. | | |
| ▲ | auxiliarymoose an hour ago | parent [-] | | How do I decline it?? I keep clicking no, hide, not interested, cancel, etc. but it keeps showing up and activating...if I had a nickel for every time I clicked it on accident in Azure because a layout shift moved it under my mouse when trying to press a button I would have a lot of nickels. It even showed up as an app on my phone because I guess the Office 365 entry got hijacked... | | |
| ▲ | mc32 35 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Your Entra Admin like your Google workspace admin can publish or remove features from user availability. |
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| ▲ | lukewarm707 2 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | if custody is with the customer.....why does palantir have compute pricing..... hmmmmmm | |
| ▲ | QuadmasterXLII 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It’s named evil corp. On purpose. | |
| ▲ | gullies an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I heard that they lock data by using proprietary formats. MSFT does not do that. | | | |
| ▲ | gunalx 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Well, they are to some degree. | |
| ▲ | foxes an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Do you work for palantir? | | |
| ▲ | Manuel_D an hour ago | parent [-] | | No, but I am curious why this one company gets some much hate. I can get being politically opposed to the conservative politics of some of its founders, but the vast majority of conservative-founded companies don't get nearly as much criticism. A lot of it is seriously borderline Q-anon levels of conspiratorial talk. Just look at the comment in this thread insinuating that Peter Thiel is going to assassinate people with orbital weapons. | | |
| ▲ | schubidubiduba 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | The people controlling Palantir are openly anti-democratic. They see technology as a means of controlling and ruling the common folk. They said so, repeatedly, in public, of their own volition. | |
| ▲ | tombert 38 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Alex Karp is a deeply unlikable human who talks about how his software is used to kill people, and that he wants to drop a lot of fentanyl-laced urine across all the negative reporters. | | | |
| ▲ | btown 11 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Your point is well taken, though it's worth pointing out that literally yesterday Palantir was co-awarded a contract for building orbital weapons systems [0]. The broader point is Palantir's specific confluence of: - access to granular, non-anonymized data across industry silos - its chairman's specific pro-authoritarian mission (so pointedly so that the Catholic Church felt the need to make a specific rebuke a few days ago [1]) - a regulatory environment in which its monetary risks are arguably minimized if it takes the broadest possible reading of e.g. HIPAA's law enforcement exceptions that mention "written administrative requests" [2] - documented concerns about governance [3] Those concerned with this confluence are far from conspiracy theorists, and may be quite rationally interested in protecting e.g. the public reputation of their hospital networks, and ability to service - to say nothing of their desire to protect the privacy of their patients. [0] https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2026-03-24/and... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/17/world/europe/peter-thiel-... - https://archive.is/2EOXa [2] https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/faq/505/what-doe... [3] https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/letter-to-palantir-techn... |
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| ▲ | guywithahat an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In some regards I'd almost rather Palantir runs it, since the DoW would force them to implement very strict data isolation features which hospitals could then get for free. I wouldn't imagine Epic Healthcare Systems would be forced to isolate data so aggressively. That said I also recognize the moral dilemma and understand why they'd pull out. Frankly I'm surprised they did much work with hospitals at all | | |
| ▲ | nradov an hour ago | parent [-] | | Most Epic products aggressively isolate data. The majority of instances are run on-premises, and even those hosted on cloud platforms are single-tenant. They have a good record for data security and privacy; afaik all Epic data breaches were actually caused by infiltration of other customer systems. |
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| ▲ | fsflover an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Microsoft can't guarantee data sovereignty – OVHcloud says 'We told you so' (theregister.com) 76 points by fauigerzigerk 6 months ago | 7 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45061153 |
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| ▲ | willis936 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Why are so many entities dealing with Palantir? They are a poison pill for customers. |
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| ▲ | paxys an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Palantir is a glorified IT consulting company. You tell them "I want a system to manage patient records" and they will dispatch a team of engineers fresh out of college to build it for you while charging top dollar. They are able to get government & military contracts because of lobbying and influence, but generally everything you see about them online is marketing. | | |
| ▲ | OJFord an hour ago | parent [-] | | Cambridge Analytica was a political consulting company... | | |
| ▲ | MidnightRider39 20 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Cambridge Analytica was much more successful as a marketing company, vastly overstating their influence and impact |
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| ▲ | 0x3f an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They don't have in-house talent to implement what they want. The same reasons they used to hire Deloitte/EY/KPMG/PwC. Palantir is one rung up from those places when it comes to talent/ability to deliver. | | |
| ▲ | senkora an hour ago | parent [-] | | +1. Think of it like a consulting shop that can deliver customized software instead of just slide decks and excel workbooks. |
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| ▲ | nradov an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Which customers? Outside of the HN bubble, very few consumers know or care which entities are using Palantir. |
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| ▲ | ar_writer 3 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Palantir is the most evil company nowadays. |
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| ▲ | hermitcrab 15 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Dear UK government, keep Palantir the hell away from my data. |
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| ▲ | ktokarev an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| when private company is deeply embedded in public health systems it is just dangerous |
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| ▲ | nottorp an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Palantir is an AI firm now? Thought it was a data collection/spyware firm. |
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| ▲ | easterncalculus an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | spyware
Why is Palantir a spyware company, but Snowflake or Databricks are not? "Spyware" has an actual definition, and there are real companies that sell it, like Pegasus. It's not some catch-all term for what people call "evil". | | |
| ▲ | natebc an hour ago | parent [-] | | If they're not a spyware company then they really super duper picked the wrong name. Maybe they were just going for evil, in which case ... well I'm glad NYC hospitals have dropped them and I hope many, many more companies and organizations choose the same path. |
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| ▲ | tbrownaw 15 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Palantir is an AI firm now? Of course. Everyone is an AI firm now. |
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| ▲ | cat-turner 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Palantir can install a data backdoor at anytime with their software. If you haven't noticed that businesses are openly violating data privacy you aren't paying attention. I don't have trust in our judicial system if Trump pardons criminals everyday. |
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| ▲ | user3939382 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| NYC schools just passed some AI guidelines as well. No training on student PII data, no final grades, etc. Unfortunately that's a pinprick for the behemoth. |
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| ▲ | infinitewars an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| J.D. Vance and Peter Thiel's Palantir is reportedly getting the software contract for control of Golden Dome, an orbital weapon system built by Elon Musk. A weapon system capable of targeting any person on Earth controlled by a mass surveillance company. Wonderful. |
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| ▲ | paxys an hour ago | parent [-] | | I'd be concerned if any of the parties involved were halfway competent. This is a grift for taxpayer dollars, nothing more. |
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| ▲ | payphonefiend an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Their main product is just consulting and PowerBI but for government. So much hysteria online! |
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| ▲ | danny_codes an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Their CEO is a crazy person who seemingly wants to tear down democracy | |
| ▲ | llm_nerd an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Hysteria? Have you listened to Karp? Palantir pushes some pretty shit-tier BI noise to clueless executives (it's actually uproarious the mythology that has built around that company), and this weird creep talks like they're the masters of the universe. Thiel is another incredibly bizarre creep, and he sits as the chairman of the board. Both are very tightly associated with the Trump crime syndicate and the US government, which increasingly is the world's #1 threat, and should be treated as equally dangerous. |
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| ▲ | varispeed 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| "controversial" Everyone knows what's going on, but also everyone is too afraid to stand up for some reason. |
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