Palantir: concerns over data firm poised to be ‘operating system’ of NHS

Palantir: concerns over data firm poised to be ‘operating system’ of NHS For a company tipped to provide the NHS’s new overarching data platform, it is appropriate that Palantir Technologies is named after an all-seeing orb.

Palantir, which draws its name from the powerful crystal balls deployed in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, is the favourite to win a £360m contract for the NHS’s Federated Data Platform (FDP). Covering everything from individual patients’ data to vaccination programmes, waiting lists and medical trials, the FDP will aggregate data from multiple sources and different formats on to a single platform. The Guardian