Palantir Contracts Have Become ‘An Unacceptable Point of Weakness,’ UK Politicians Warn
Palantir Contracts Have Become ‘An Unacceptable Point of Weakness,’ UK Politicians Warn
英国政界警告：Palantir 合同已成为“不可接受的薄弱环节”
A bipartisan group of UK politicians is sounding the alarm over the country’s partnership with the data analytics company Palantir. 英国一个跨党派政治团体正就该国与数据分析公司 Palantir 的合作关系发出警报。
In a report published Tuesday, the 11 members of Parliament’s Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee warned that the country’s ballooning reliance on Palantir’s technology “represents an unacceptable point of weakness” that could hand the company overwhelming bargaining power in future negotiations. 在周二发布的一份报告中，议会科学、创新和技术委员会的 11 名成员警告称，英国对 Palantir 技术的依赖日益加深，“构成了一个不可接受的薄弱环节”，这可能使该公司在未来的谈判中掌握压倒性的议价能力。
“We know that with vendor lock-in, over time, we’ll get more expensive and worse services,” Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the committee and member of Parliament, tells WIRED. “It’s a trap that has to be avoided.” “我们知道，随着供应商锁定效应的产生，久而久之，我们将面临更昂贵且更糟糕的服务，”该委员会主席、议员 Chi Onwurah 女爵士告诉《连线》（WIRED）杂志，“这是一个必须避免的陷阱。”
In a worst-case scenario, a deeply entrenched supplier could threaten to withhold service as a way of imposing its will, Onwurah believes. “That could bring public services and our economy to a halt,” she says. “That’s a huge risk.” Onwurah 认为，在最坏的情况下，根深蒂固的供应商可能会以停止服务作为威胁，从而强加其意志。“这可能会导致公共服务和我们的经济陷入停滞，”她说，“这是一个巨大的风险。”
Though the committee says that its objections to Palantir are not ideologically motivated, the report also describes a “clear mismatch with UK values.” It points to politically charged comments by Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel—who in 2023 described the British public’s affection for the NHS as “Stockholm syndrome”—and a 22-point manifesto based on a recent book by CEO Alex Karp, which advocates for an overriding fealty to the US and its interests. 尽管委员会表示其对 Palantir 的反对并非出于意识形态动机，但报告也指出双方存在“与英国价值观明显不符”的情况。报告提到了 Palantir 联合创始人彼得·蒂尔（Peter Thiel）充满政治色彩的言论——他在 2023 年将英国公众对国民医疗服务体系（NHS）的喜爱描述为“斯德哥尔摩综合征”——以及一份基于首席执行官亚历克斯·卡普（Alex Karp）近期著作的 22 点宣言，该宣言主张对美国及其利益保持绝对忠诚。
“We have a key vendor saying they will exercise technology in accordance with their political mission,” Onwurah says. “If what the UK is trying to do in our NHS or our defense does not align with Palantir’s political objectives, we clearly can’t depend upon them as a supplier.” “我们的一家关键供应商声称他们将根据其政治使命来运用技术，”Onwurah 说，“如果英国在 NHS 或国防领域所做的事情与 Palantir 的政治目标不一致，我们显然不能依赖他们作为供应商。”
To minimize the risks, the committee recommended that the National Health Service, one of Palantir’s primary partners in the UK, activates a clause in its contract next February that would terminate the relationship early. 为了最大限度地降低风险，委员会建议作为 Palantir 在英国的主要合作伙伴之一，国民医疗服务体系（NHS）应在明年二月激活合同中的一项条款，提前终止双方的合作关系。
The UK government began to use Palantir’s technology in 2020 as it scrambled to map the spread of the Covid-19 virus and route medical equipment across the country. Since then, Palantir and its partners have won contracts worth a combined $750 million with the NHS and the Ministry of Defense, among others. The company has touted its ability to enable “innovation and fast-paced problem solving” in the UK public sector. 英国政府于 2020 年开始使用 Palantir 的技术，当时正忙于追踪新冠病毒的传播并调配全国的医疗设备。自那时起，Palantir 及其合作伙伴已从 NHS 和国防部等机构获得了总价值 7.5 亿美元的合同。该公司一直标榜其有能力在英国公共部门实现“创新和快速解决问题”。
The report outlines similar dependencies on US-based cloud providers Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, and Fujitsu, the Japanese company at the center of the Post Office Horizon scandal. But “Palantir concerns us most,” the committee wrote. 报告概述了对美国云服务提供商微软（Microsoft）和亚马逊云科技（AWS），以及处于邮局 Horizon 丑闻中心的日本公司富士通（Fujitsu）的类似依赖。但委员会写道：“Palantir 最令我们担忧。”
Palantir did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Palantir 没有立即回应置评请求。
The relationship has attracted increased scrutiny of late over the company’s work with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as the US and Israeli militaries. The manifesto based on Karp’s book further inflamed concerns about the company’s politics. 由于该公司与美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）以及美国和以色列军方的合作，这种关系近期受到了越来越多的审查。基于卡普著作的宣言进一步加剧了人们对该公司政治立场的担忧。
“They’re not a company that should be anywhere near British public services,” says Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at Foxglove, a nonprofit that has previously campaigned for the NHS to back out of its contract with Palantir. “Do you want to be giving a company of this kind—with these openly expressed opinions and ideologies—a central role in the UK state that it may get harder and harder to remove them from?” “他们不应该出现在任何靠近英国公共服务的地方，”非营利组织 Foxglove 的倡导总监唐纳德·坎贝尔（Donald Campbell）表示，该组织此前曾发起运动，要求 NHS 退出与 Palantir 的合同。“你真的想让这样一家公司——持有这些公开表达的观点和意识形态——在英国国家事务中占据核心地位，以至于未来可能越来越难以将其移除吗？”
Appearing before the committee in July last year, Louis Mosley, who heads up Palantir’s European business, distanced the company from Thiel’s comments about the NHS. Palantir’s objective is to “support democratically elected governments in delivering the mandate that they have been elected to deliver,” he said. “We represent a diversity of political views and do not take political positions as a company.” 去年 7 月，负责 Palantir 欧洲业务的路易斯·莫斯利（Louis Mosley）在委员会作证时，将公司与蒂尔关于 NHS 的言论撇清了关系。他表示，Palantir 的目标是“支持民选政府履行其当选时所承诺的使命”，“我们代表了多元化的政治观点，作为一家公司，我们不采取任何政治立场。”
Some proponents have argued that political grievances risk derailing the UK government’s stated aim to turn the UK into a “truly digital state” and improve the efficiency of a beleaguered NHS. 一些支持者认为，政治上的不满可能会破坏英国政府既定的目标，即把英国变成一个“真正的数字国家”，并提高陷入困境的 NHS 的效率。
But any government entrusting sensitive data to a third-party vendor needs to be confident it will not act against its interests, others argue. 但其他人则认为，任何将敏感数据委托给第三方供应商的政府，都需要确信该供应商不会损害其利益。
“These companies are such a size, we can’t really inspect what they’re doing,” says Eerke Boiten, a professor of cybersecurity at De Montfort University. “If data needs to be operated on, in 99 percent of cases the provider will need to be able to see the data. That means you have to trust them.” “这些公司的规模如此之大，我们根本无法真正审查它们在做什么，”德蒙福特大学（De Montfort University）网络安全教授 Eerke Boiten 说，“如果数据需要被处理，在 99% 的情况下，提供商都需要能够看到这些数据。这意味着你必须信任他们。”