If you’re not familiar with the surveillance giant Palantir, you should - because they already know plenty about you.
Primarily a defence contractor, Palantir Technologies specialises in data integration and surveillance analytics.
Palantir’s approach to privacy and transparency is broadly terrible. The company specialises in creating detailed profiles of people by combining large databases about us. They then provide surveillance capability to their customers, including the Israeli Defence Forces and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Amnesty International has reported that, with these programmes, Palantir is facilitating human rights abuse. Australians demand our government respects all human rights, but since 2014 Palantir has charged the Australian government over 37 million dollars. This is intolerable.
Companies and government departments, including Coles, RioTinto, Westpac, the Victorian Department of Justice and Department of Defence have chosen to work with Palantir. This is a worrying trend. At present, there is no public reassurance that Palantir’s privacy-invading systems are not being used here in Australia. This is particularly worrying given the gaps in our current privacy protections. While Michelle Rowland continues to deny us stronger privacy laws, she allows Australians to be exposed to data misuse and excessive surveillance.
Palantir collects data in Australia but is unrestricted in where it stores the data and who it allows to access it. As a U.S. based company, Palantir is subject to American laws that allow access to foreign data. Australians need to be able to protect our sensitive information.
Palantir is under no obligation to follow any of the advice provided by their own Privacy and Civil Liberties Advisor team. Their actions suggest they do not.
Australians need to know how our government engages with Palantir. The Albanese government must take steps to prioritise our human rights, privacy, and digital sovereignty over Palantir’s dystopian surveillance profiteering.
We have asked Katy Gallagher, the Minister for Finance, and MP Andrew Charlton for clarification of Australia’s role in Palantir’s expansion but they have not yet deigned to reply.