Difference between revisions of "Palantir Technologies"

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Palantir Technologies Inc.

Palantir Technologies Inc. text Type Privately held software company Launch Date May 2003 Status active Product Line Palantir Gotham, Palantir Foundry Platform Data Analytics Website [site https://www.palantir.com/]

Palantir Technologies is an American data analytics company. It was founded by Peter Theil in May of 2003 ^[1]. In 2004, Thiel appointed his former Stanford law colleague Alex Karp as the CEO ^[2]. Palantir writes software that organizes, secures, and analyzes large sets of data^[3]. The CIA became one of Palantir's first customers in 2005 ^[2]. Through word-of-mouth, many other defense, intelligence, and other government agencies enlisted Palantir, including the Department of Defense, NSA, FBI, CDC, FDA, SEC, and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. Palantir has expanded to serve international clients as well. Due to Palantir's clients and the datasets that they work with, some of their projects are considered controversial.

Ethical Controversies

Predictive Policing

Palantir formed a partnership with the New Orleans Police Department in 2012 to create a system to predict who is a driver or victim of violence. To do so, the New Orleans Police department gave Palantir access to the NOPD criminal database, as well as millions of court filings, licenses, addresses, phone numbers, and social media accounts^[4]. This was done without notice to the residents of New Orleans or the city council members. Using the information provided to them, Palantir developed a prediction model using a technique called social network analysis to make connections between people, cars, places, weapons, addresses, and other government databases. Officers could then use the prediction model to identify potential victims and assailants based on pieces of information such as a partial license plate number, social media handle, nickname, address, or phone number. Palantir's work in the sector is credited to have decreased the New Orleans homocide rate, however, although the prediction model was used by the New Orleans Police department, it is technically a prototype and could potentially wrongly identify innocent people. ^[5]

The Los Angeles Police Department incorporated a similar system from Palantir, creating a program called Operation Laser. Pulling data from sources such as rap sheets, parole reports, and police interviews are pooled to generate a list of who the LAPD considers chronic offenders. This list is distributed to police officers, who are then encouraged to stop these people for anything possible - usually using simple excuses like jaywalking ^[6]. In 2014, Palantir patented a crime-risk forecasting system and they have tried to expand these programs to other cities' police departments ^[7].

Investigative Case Management

In 2019, Palantir decided to renew a 41 million dollar contract to maintain the Investigative Case Management (ICM) system with Immigration and Customs Enforcements. Investigative Case Management is a data management software that enables Immigration and Customs Enforcement to conduct raids and deport illegal immigrants among other things. ^[8] Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003 and is subservient to U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement is responsible for enforcing immigrations laws and customs. Under President Trump, the federal agency is encouraged to perform raids and deport as many illegal immigrants as possible. ^[9] This decision, made by executives at Palantir, was protested by many employees at Palantir. They expressed their concerns with creating software that would enable Immigration and Customs Enforcement to perform raids on possible illegal aliens. ^[10] Several online publications including Hill, New York Times, and Noteworthy released online publications highlighting the ethical concerns of Palantir renewing this contract. ^[11] The actions of Immigration and Custom Enforcement are viewed as humanitarian offences by many. Providing software that aids Immigration and Customs Enforcement is viewed as an offence by proxy. This software directly improves the efficiency of the departments that organize and perform raids. The purpose of these raids is to identify and capture illegal immigrants for deportation. This situation raises an ethical question surrounding the responsibility of companies to know how their products will be used and incorporate that into their decision about what jobs to undertake. Palantir claims that the work of deciding what projects are ethically sound falls on government and the political system. The company’s trust in the government is reflected in its decision to take on the 41 million dollar contract to maintain the Investigative Case Management software. Critics of Palantir claim that a company should be responsible for considering the social and political ramifications of taking on a project. ^[12] There were talks of Palantir deciding not to renew this contract, but they turned out to be false. In light of this, the government tapped several other firms for the job, but almost all declined. ^[13] Currently, Palantir stands in firm support of the governments actions, despite risk of the ire of the public and walkouts from employees.

References

1. ↑ http://pdf.secdatabase.com/2796/9999999997-05-014327.pdf.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} https://web.archive.org/web/20140516035733/http://www.mausstrategicconsulting.com/1/post/2014/04/a-pretty-complete-history-of-palantir.html
3. ↑ https://www.businessinsider.com/palantir-ice-explainer-data-startup-2019-7
4. ↑ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4344815-Nola-hc3-Final-20140403.html#document/p5/a398052
5. ↑ https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predictive-policing-tool-new-orleans-nopd
6. ↑ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel/
7. ↑ https://patents.google.com/patent/US9129219?oq=inassignee:
8. ↑ https://thehill.com/policy/technology/458170-ice-renews-contract-with-palantir
9. ↑ https://www.ice.gov/overview
10. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/politics/fact-check-ice-immigration-abolish.html
11. ↑ https://blog.usejournal.com/whats-your-role-in-the-unethical-side-of-tech-ce5373f66a3
12. ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelposner/2019/09/12/what-companies-can-learn-from-palantir/#10a3474c16e0
13. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/22/war-inside-palantir-data-mining-firms-ties-ice-under-attack-by-employees/