In Congress, a group of Democratic Party lawmakers is demanding answers about Palantir’s work and data collection capabilities.
Palantir Technologies is roundly denying claims it’s building a massive, unified database containing Americans’ personal information, following media coverage implying its work for various federal agencies could enable unprecedented surveillance.
On May 30, the New York Times published an article highlighting the potential impact of the more than $900 million worth of federal contracts awarded to the Denver-based technology company since the beginning of the Trump administration.
“We are not building, we have not been asked to build, and we’re not in contract to build any kind of federal master list or master database across different agencies,” Courtney Bowman, the company’s global director of privacy and civil liberties, told The Epoch Times, “Each of those contracts are separate and fulfill specific mandates that are scoped and bound by congressional authorities and other laws.”
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designed to limit wasteful spending by “eliminating information silos” among federal agencies. The order mandates that federal agencies must share data with each other. Furthermore, it requires the federal government to have unrestricted access to data from state programs receiving federal funding.
In the days following the report, various media outlets published reports that interpreted Palantir’s work as tantamount to developing a “’master database‘ or ’central intelligence layer’ drawing on Interal Revenue Service, Social Security, immigration and other records,” the Digital Trade & Data Governance Hub at George Washington University said in June.
“Collecting and linking such a vast array of sensitive records could create an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure. … There is a heightened risk of sensitive data being repurposed for uses beyond its original intent, or being used for political purposes,” a team led by Michael Moreno, a research associate at the Hub said.
Moreno declined an interview request from The Epoch Times.
