Privacy advocates demand a European survey of Palantir
The Dutch privacy group SOMI is calling for an extensive investigation into the activities of the controversial data analytics firm Palantir throughout the European Union (EU) on collaboration between the European government and non-EU technology companies on surveillance and profiling technology. I want to raise awareness of.
This article was published on 16 November 2020 on Eminetra.co.uk. Written by John Abraham.
The Amsterdam-based Market Information Research Foundation (Stichting Onderzoek Marktinformatie, or SOMI) is a non-profit organization advocating data privacy and consumer issues around the Netherlands and Europe.
Neither Palantir nor several European institutions using the technology are willing to share information about its performance, so they are taking action. These agencies include Europol, a French intelligence agency, the Danish National Police, and the Hessian and North Rhine-Westphalia State Police, who used Palantir’s Gotham software to perform operational analysis of the anti-terrorism task force. Is known. , Probably the Dutch police.
In the UK, it was previously linked to Cambridge Analytica and this year worked with Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft to build a data analytics program for NHSX’s Covid-19. More recently, it has been given monitoring of post-Brexit border and customs data in the United Kingdom, and has worked with the US Immigration Service ICE in the United States, which is involved in multiple human rights abuses under the Trump administration.
“The strength of Palantir’s approach lies in its ability to combine independent and therefore meaningless data in ways that create unexpected connections and insights,” said Cor Wijtvliet, co-founder of SOMI.
“But access to all these databases has gradually transformed the reputation and admiration of work and software into a mood of distrust and disapproval.”
SOMI wants Palantir and its users to benefit European citizens by clarifying how companies access citizens’ data, who they use, what they use it for, and what data has been or will be processed. is. We also want to highlight the potential consequences of European institutions with disabilities or involved in non-EU GDPR. [General Data Protection Regulation] Compliant software “.
Palantir’s software enables predictive policing that clearly violates presumption of innocence and some GDPR regulations until proven guilty. In particular, according to SOMI, the GDPR provides protection against the application of practices such as profiling and automated decision making.
SOMI also raised concerns about the close relationship between Palantir and the U.S. government and intelligence agencies, and the transparency of the meeting with European Commission Chair Ursula von der Leyen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Emphasized the lack of.
“The purpose of SOMI’s public action is to ensure that all European citizens are well protected from random or uncontrollable practices and that the integrity of EU surveillance activities is not compromised by unknown (unknown) non-European organizations. That’s what the group said.
For more information on the proposed actions, including current EU citizens on how to register, please visit the SOMI website in Dutch and English. The organization has also developed a GDPR mobile app that allows consumers to download and make subject access requests for an overview of their personal data.