TheBadPlaceyahoo news | 'Very significant privacy concerns': UK hands over financial regulation data to...
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has awarded Palantir a three‑month trial contract worth more than £30,000 a week to feed the company its regulatory data and let its AI tools look for patterns that could help stop fraud, money‑laundering, insider‑trading and other financial crime. The deal gives Palantir access to highly sensitive information, including case files, bank reports, consumer complaints and personally identifiable details such as emails and phone numbers.
Critics have warned that handing such data to the US‑based firm raises “very significant privacy concerns”. Palantir’s track record – including contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and links to the Israeli military – has already drawn criticism from MPs over human‑rights issues. Moreover, the FCA chose to run the pilot on real regulatory data rather than synthetic data, prompting questions about whether adequate safeguards are in place to prevent misuse or accidental exposure of private information.
The FCA says the data will remain stored in the UK, that it will retain all intellectual‑property rights to any insights generated, and that Palantir must delete the data once the contract ends. An FCA spokesperson added that a competitive procurement process and strict controls were used to protect the information. Nonetheless, observers caution that this small‑scale trial could pave the way for broader Palantir involvement across the UK public sector, heightening the need for robust oversight and privacy protections.
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