The spy-tech firm managing NHS data

The NHS does not have a happy history with big IT projects. In the past, hugely ambitious schemes have run aground, costing taxpayers billions of pounds. But its systems for managing the vast amounts of data generated on a daily basis are creaking. In some cases it can be easier for patients to physically transport their own paper documents between NHS providers than to rely on the health service’s computer systems.

That is the backdrop for the recent NHS announcement that a deal has been done with the US spy-tech company Palantir to manage data in its hospitals, connecting up information held by different trusts and allowing the health service to draw conclusions about population health.

It is a deal that raises serious questions, says Cori Crider, a lawyer and privacy advocate. She tells Nosheen Iqbal that there are concerns with outsourcing such a deal to the private sector in principle. But Palantir in particular, with its record of working on immigration enforcement in the US, will create issues for public trust in the use of their date, even if properly anonymised.

Earlier this year a spokesperson for Palantir said: “As a software company, we don’t collect or monetise data, we simply provide the tools to help customers organise and understand their own information. And precisely because our software is used in some of the most sensitive information environments in the world, it is built to ensure data sharing is controlled, auditable and in accordance with customer-defined purposes only.”