Framework Agreement: Germany-Wide Use Of Palantir:
Data Concerns:
Palantir Was Fundamental Towards The Russia & Ukraine War:
Palantir is not a “data broker” or “data aggregator.”
The following has been translated from German.
Framework Agreement: Germany-Wide Use Of Palantir:
Palantir’s software could also be used nation wide within Germany in the future. Appropriate tests are being carried out in both federal states, as a survey by BR among the state and federal interior ministries shows.
The Hamburg State Criminal Police Office also writes on request that they are interested in an application as part of the nationwide digitization strategy “Police 2020”.
The software is already in use in a few regions within Germany in current date. The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office also signed a framework agreement with Palantir for the use of Palantir (interdisciplinary research and analysis) in the spring of this year.
This framework agreement now gives all federal states and the federal government the opportunity to purchase the software with less friction.
The Palantir product, which is based on the Gotham, is intended to bring together information from various police databases and contribute to the fight against crime: “Our goal is to make the police’s analytical capabilities for fighting and prosecuting serious and organized crime and terrorism even more successful and faster,” says a press release from the Bavarian LKA.
Jürgen Bering, lawyer and data protection expert at the Society for Freedom Rights, describes the framework agreement as a “dam bursting”: “The big problem is that it will strengthen Palantir’s market position in the German market. “
Actually, procurement procedures should ensure that there is competition and that there are no dependencies. Here we have a dependency of the authorities on Palantir, and that is cemented by the framework agreement,” said Bering.
When asked by BR , certain Germany regions announced that it had not yet been decided whether the framework agreement would be used. The Ministry of the Interior in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania says that the future use of a Palantir product cannot be ruled out.
The federal government also wants to decide whether it wants to use the software. This means that the Federal Police and the Customs Criminal Police Office could also use the software. In 2018, Federal Ministers were critical of the cooperation with Palantir due to data protection concerns.
Data Concerns:
As reported by various policing leaders, officials should be able to use the Palantir software to query not only police databases but also other official databases, such as the weapons register, resident registration data or the central register of foreigners.
Furthermore, passenger data or investigation reports from Internet also can be integrated within the Palantir solution.
Nevertheless, Jürgen Bering fears that the new linking of data could violate fundamental rights. The software connects “not just one or two small data sets, but thousands”.
Some officials argue that “citizen can be viewed at the push of a button”.
Jurisdiction says that such software can be used in special cases, for example to avert special dangers. “It must not be that this system becomes the standard and police and security authorities simply so access it,” says Bering.
The Bavarian state data protection officer, Thomas Petri, also sees legal problems: “I consider the use of a research and analysis tool like Palantir to be a significant encroachment on fundamental rights. Palantir enables cross-database research and analysis, he stated.
This goes far beyond the usual use of the Bavarian police databases.” Petri calls for a legal regulation “which clearly defines when Palantir may be used and when not”.
On request, the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior stated that “the need for a sector-specific legal basis is still being examined.”
Several federal states are taking a different approach than Bavaria
A survey of German interior ministries also shows that some countries are more reluctant to use the Palantir software. One Ministry writes: “There are currently no technical requirements that require the use of this software”.
One official went on to state that, “currently no technical need has been identified that could only be served by software from Palantir”.
Furthermore, another official stated that they prefer to rely on their own developments: “In the Lower Saxony police force, their own software developments are also being tested.”
The Lower Saxony police are striving to strengthen digital sovereignty and make alternatives to commercial providers available.
Palantir Was Fundamental Towards The Russia & Ukraine War:
Palantir has played a fundamental role within the Ukrainian war, in which military officials have labelled as “a fundamental change in the character of war”
The chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc. quietly visited Ukraine this week, meeting with the country’s president and other leaders in Kyiv to discuss defense cooperation and the opening of an office for the data analytics company in the war-torn country.
CEO Alex Karp’s trip to Eastern Europe and subsequent exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov was disclosed June 2. Photos and a summary of the trip were shared by Zelenskyy’s office and posted on social media.
Interesting news has released within recent times in which points towards a major overhaul of military spending & technologies, specifically within the US.
Alex Karp has reiterated within previous interviews that the race towards the best technologies within the military is not linear. Instead, this is exponential. Karp was hinting towards the importance of the US & West investing within the best technologies for modern warfare. The nations that get the best technologies first, are likely to experience exponential growth curves when it comes to the utility of data & innovative technologies.
The future of warfare is going to encapsulate artificial intelligence, robotics and other advanced technologies, according to Army General Milley.
Palantir is not a “data broker” or “data aggregator.”
“Palantir has often been described as a secretive company. There is some truth to this. For many years, we primarily served institutions with exceptional confidentiality expectations in fields like defence and intelligence. Palantir had little choice but to remain silent about our work, even when misunderstandings about the nature of the business appeared in the media or in the public sphere.”
Unlike many tech companies, the Palantir business model is not based on the monetisation of personal data. Palantir does not collect, store, or sell personal data. Palantir does not use personal data to train proprietary AI or machine learning models to share or resell to other customers. Palantir never facilitates the movement of data between clients, except where those specific clients have entered into an agreement with each other.
“Palantir builds digital infrastructure for data-driven operations and decision making. Our products serve as the connective tissue between an organisation’s data, its analytics capabilities, and operational execution. Palantir’s platforms tie these together by bringing the right data to the people who need it, allowing them to take data-driven decisions, conduct sophisticated analytics, and refine operations through feedback. We license this software to organisations, who receive secure and unique instances of our platforms in which to conduct their own work on their own data.”
This infrastructure helps organisations bring the right data together at the right time to answer complex questions and make intelligent decisions. This is particularly valuable when existing systems are fragmented, and essential information is held in silos that can’t communicate with each other.
Healthcare organisations, for instance, have used the Palantir software to tackle challenges like efficiently allocating PPE supplies when thousands of hospitals across the country have radically different and constantly changing levels of supply and demand for each item of PPE.
“With regards to customer data, Palantir acts as a data processor, not a data controller. Our software and services are used under direction from the organisations that license our products: these organisations define what can and cannot be done with their data; they control the Palantir accounts in which analysis is conducted; and any Palantir engineers that assist them in their work follow these directions.”
Palantir does not and cannot reuse or transfer our clients’ data for our own purposes.
“Attempting to profit from customer data in this way would be illegal and would undermine the trust that is necessary to work in the sensitive environments in which we have built our business, said the company”.
