INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
As the floor drops out from under many startups, some tech companies are finding a path forward by meeting new government needs.
Among them
is Palantir, a secretive government-friendly big data operation that able to ingest vast amounts of information to visualize trends and
track individuals — useful tasks as the spread of COVID-19 threatens to overwhelm healthcare systems and ravage economies.
In mid-March,
The Wall Street Journal reported that Palantir was working with the CDC to model the potential spread of the virus
Forbes reports that CDC staffers are now regularly using Palantir web app to visualize the spread of the virus and to anticipate hospital
According to that report, Palantir is eschewing dealing with sensitive personally identifying information in its coronavirus efforts,
instead providing analysis of anonymized hospital and healthcare data, lab results and equipment supplies through a platform called Palantir
Foundry.
In the U.K., Palantir is also providing the National Health Service (NHS) with COVID-19 data analysis through the company Foundry
In a blog post that mentioned the partnership, the U.K
government said that it will use Foundry &which has been primarily developed in the UK& to &[enable] disparate data to be integrated,
cleaned, and harmonised in order to develop the single source of truth that will support decision-making.
According to a new report from
Bloomberg, Palantir is also pitching its analytics software to government officials in France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria
The company is apparently pitching both its Foundry software and a tool called Gotham, which is best-known for helping intelligence and law
enforcement agencies track individuals, as in the case of the company work with ICE
Those two tools are being proposed to European health agencies as a blended solution that could help countries get a bird&s-eye view of the
pandemic.
As interest in surveillance technologies ramps up to meet the mounting crisis, privacy advocates are already sounding the alarm
The Electronic Frontier Foundation cautioned that &governments around the world are demanding extraordinary new surveillance powers& to
fight the virus and urges close scrutiny of new relationships between governments and private companies that arise out of the
pandemic.
Among those relationships: Palantir co-founder and chairman Peter Thiel is one of the Trump administration most prominent allies
His sometimes controversial projects and investments generally attract attention, Palantir included.
Likely aware of its reputation as the
shadowy tech giant that helps to power ICE deportation machine, Palantir is apparently acknowledging the privacy implications of its new
In a statement provided to The Wall Street Journal, Palantir privacy lead Courtney Bowman asserted that privacy and civil liberty must be
taken as &guiding concentrations& in any data-driven COVID-19 response, ¬ as afterthoughts.
While it appears to be taking on a new role
with the United States COVID-19 response, Palantir has worked with the United States federal government on infectious health threats for
In 2010, the CDC used Palantir to monitor an outbreak of cholera in Haiti.
Some of that work is very recent
In late January, Palantir signed a $3.6 million contract with the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide
software for PEPFAR, a long-running international HIV relief program.
