Palantir Hits Back; Accuses Khan of “Politics Above Public Safety”
Palantir has accused Sir Sadiq Khan of “putting politics above public safety” after the London mayor blocked its £50 million Met Police contract. Louis Mosley, who heads Palantir in the UK and Europe, accused Khan of politicising procurement: “What Londoners value is not being mugged, not being raped by a serving police officer.” The block has created tensions inside Labour over the party’s broader engagement with the Palantir AI/data platform. Scotland Yard described the move as “disappointing”, adding that without new technology its ability to keep London safe would be compromised.
Scotland Yard had initially appointed Palantir on a separate deal worth less than £500,000 — below the threshold for Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime scrutiny — to use AI to detect rogue officers by scanning rosters and other systems. The Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, criticised that initial deal as a “big brother system” and the “unchecked use of a controversial provider to spy on every single one of our colleagues”. The Met had wanted to extend Palantir’s involvement to scanning criminal intelligence data for patterns and clues, as it already does for Bedfordshire and Leicestershire. The Khan block sets a precedent for UK police-AI procurement and reopens the wider question of whether Palantir’s NHS Foundry contract can continue to operate as planned.