Since the start of his presidency, President Trump has been fastidiously signing executive orders. One of these, the order to Stop Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos, mandates federal agencies share their data with each other. Now, President Trump has been in conversation with Palantir to compile a nationwide database on Americans using federal data and a Palantir product known as Foundry.
Foundry is intended to be used by companies as a data analysis tool to optimize their workflows. Intended use cases like cancer research, care safety, and supply chain logistics are outlined on their website, which describes Foundry as an “Ontology/AI powered operating system for the modern enterprise.” Despite their seemingly benign intentions, Palantir has a past of allowing their technology to be used for shady applications, for example, their work with the LAPD.
There are concerns that collaboration between Palantir and the Trump administration does not bear well for the privacy and safety of the American public. While Palantir has previously worked with the U.S. government before, such as aiding the CDC with vaccine distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic, this is the first time the private data analysis and surveillance company is being given such extensive access to Americans’ data. Many are concerned that data analysis this all encompassing will allow the Trump administration to silence opposition and further ramp up policing efforts on immigrants.
The prospect of the government having the ability to compile detailed profiles on all its citizens is harrowing. Ex-engineers for Palantir have gone as far as to call President Trump’s actions as “alluding to a monarchy” in their letter titled “The Scouring of the Shire”, where they warn readers of the dark path that Palantir is going down. Opposition has also come from Trump supporters, who are outraged at Trump’s plans to coalesce data on Americans, claiming that they did not vote for their privacy to be infringed upon. Palantir has yet to comment on the criticism they are facing from ex-employees and outrage from both privacy activists and Trump supporters.
