HIKMA SUMMIT
OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
 

The Eye of Sauron

According to their own definition, Palantir "makes software which organizations use to better manage their data, improve their operations, and serve the people who rely on them."

“We’re proud that essential organizations — including those delivering life-saving assistance, improving health outcomes, manufacturing aircraft fleets, and securing and defending the West — depend on our software platforms to deliver their most vital mission outcomes and further institutional trust within the communities they serve.”

The insistence on the software company definition is [certainly] due to the growing concern around the mass surveillance capabilities offered within Palantir’s services. Yet, Palantir is quick to distance itself from criticism : "Contrary to some media reports, we are not a surveillance company. We do not sell personal data of any kind. We don't provide data-mining as a service."

Palantir, now standing as the most richly valued company in the SaaS industry, boasts a market capitalization of $82 billion. This success stems from the company's unique services, centered around two [main] platforms : Palantir Gotham, intended for defense and intelligence services, and Palantir Foundry, oriented toward the private sector.

“Securing and Defending the West”

Without prevaricating too much on what the West actually is, one can understand the perception of said West by looking at Palantir’s client base. Palantir's clientèle, nowadays, spans both government and commercial sectors, with notable customers including the U.S. Department of Defense, the CIA, and major enterprises across industries like healthcare, energy, and finance.

Once criticized for its custom services with the government, Palantir is now productionizing AI in the most complex enterprise and government environments globally… including France's DGSI (General Directorate for Internal Security). The DGSI, a French intelligence agency under the Ministry of the Interior, is tasked with preventing terrorism, countering foreign interference, and more broadly combating threats to national security. Recently, the DGSI extended its contract with Palantir for an additional three-year period, lasting until 2028, for its intelligence needs.

This extension is a massive setback for French digital sovereignty. As a matter of fact, a call for tenders named OTDH (tool for processing heterogeneous data) was launched in 2022 specifically to replace the American publisher with a French actor. To note that such “detaching” attempts are not new : as early as 2018, Laurent Nuñez, then director of the DGSI, indicated to Bloomberg that he wanted to work "to develop a French or European offer in order to make a tool available to all intelligence services." In 2023, the call for tenders launched by the DGSI was narrowed down to three suppliers (compared with nine initially): Athea (an alliance between Atos and Thales), Blueway, and Chapsvision. Yet none of them were chosen.

But why ? Currently, no European solution is as efficient as the one proposed by Palantir, especially its software 'Gotham'. This AI-boosted program crosses multiple sources ranging from satellite images to biometric data. In a few seconds, the tool can identify a military target or a terrorist threat. This leaves France - and the European Union - very reliant, once again, on American services, eroding our national autonomy. Very ironic when you refer to Alex Karp quote framing of Palantir as serving "the U.S. and its allies". The term "allies" implies an equal position between powers, but here that equality is completely illusory.

To be loved is to be known

The expansion of Palantir in Europe, and particularly in France, poses major risks for digital sovereignty and data protection.

First, the U.S. Cloud Act of 2018 allows U.S. authorities to access data stored by American companies, even when hosted in Europe, creating a structural legal vulnerability. Second, the use of Palantir technologies by European administrations creates a technological dependency that is difficult to reverse, similar to that observed with Microsoft or Amazon Web Services. Third, the sensitive data of European citizens [health, safety, taxation] could be exposed to analysis and exploitation by a foreign company whose interests are not necessarily aligned with those of Europe.

France's situation directly contradicts the ambitions displayed by the European Union in terms of digital sovereignty, notably through the GDPR and initiatives like Gaia-X. Several voices, including those of Members of the European Parliament and cybersecurity experts, call for increased vigilance and the development of European alternatives to avoid digital colonization by American or Chinese actors.

Palantir's influence, however, is not perceiveable only abroad… Let's go back to domestic affairs. The relationship between Palantir and Trump is incredibly controversial too. Peter Thiel was a major financial supporter of Donald Trump since 2016 and enjoyed privileged access to the White House, even participating in the presidential transition team. Under this administration, Palantir expanded its contracts with U.S. federal agencies, notably with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for migrant tracking and deportation operations.

More troubling still is Palantir's role in military operations.  Project Maven, the company's real-time AI surveillance capability that leverages satellite imagery, was also used in conjunction with Anthropic's Claude AI in the capture of Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro.

Moreover, in light of recent events, one should also be aware that the U.S. claimed to use  a variety of AI tools in its operations against Iran ;  notably Maven Smart System.  This is a platform similar to Google Earth,  but for war. It shows a map with white dots, containing information like elevation, coordinates, what is precisely there, whether it’s friendly or foe.  In the first 24 hours of their operations against Iran, the U.S. announced they hit a thousand targets. While AI isn’t doing everything, it helps in  analyzing data, identifying targets, and choosing the best weapons to use.

These may seem distant from [our] European concerns ; after all, "we are the West" and Iran is framed as the adversary. But remember that geopolitical allegiances shift. The risk of a U.S. administration turning on its partners is never zero. What happens to the data Palantir has collected if interests diverge ? Palantir claims to ensure and sell software that  is “unicellular”, so the imputed data cannot be replicated or stored, each user is completely disconnected from the other. But can we trust it ?

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them ? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

The state need not even sell citizen data : It’s easy to cut off the middleman, when he cuts out most of himself.  We may be feeding our future oppressor.

In June 2024, Palantir announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI to integrate advanced language models like GPT-4 into its data analytics platforms, enabling government agencies and businesses to combine generative AI with predictive analytics. This convergence raises major concerns : the data analyzed by Palantir could potentially enrich AI models, creating a feedback loop where surveillance and artificial intelligence reinforce each other. 

Several media outlets have documented the controversial use of Palantir by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, including for profiling and mass surveillance.

The implications extend beyond governments and corporations to individual citizens. As Palantir's technologies become more deeply embedded in public infrastructure. Palantir 's insistence that it is "not a surveillance company" rings hollow when its tools are demonstrably used for exactly such purposes by clients around the world.

Cash or Card ?... Paypal perhaps ?

Our repeated failures to develop competitive European alternatives suggest that the gap may already be too wide to bridge through conventional means.   The convergence of Palantir's surveillance capabilities with cutting-edge AI models like GPT-4 [perhaps in the near future GPT-5] do not offer enthralling perspectives. We are moving toward a world where generative AI, mass data collection and the predictive analysis derived from it,  form an integrated system largely controlled by American corporate interests, with implicit ties to U.S. intelligence and military objectives.

The question is not only whether Palantir is a surveillance company. The question is whether societies can afford to depend on a single foreign entity for capabilities so fundamental to national security and civic life.

As Alex Karp himself noted, "What makes America special right now is our lethal capabilities, our ability to fight war. [...] The AI revolution is uniquely American." For Europe, the challenge is whether they will participate in this revolution as partners, as  merely clients ; or even worse as subservient. The cost of continued dependence may ultimately be measured not in euros or dollars, but in the erosion of the very sovereignty that Palantir claims to defend.