Thousands call on UK ministers to cut ties with US tech giant Palantir

More than 200,000 have signed petitions urging the government to break contracts, amid concerns about the company’s ‘supervillain’ manifesto

Over 200,000 people have called on ministers to break contracts with Palantir in an apparent groundswell of public concern about the US tech company’s role in the NHS, police, military and councils.

Two petitions have attracted 229,000 signatures, one calling for the government to end all public contracts with the firm, whose software is used by Donald Trump’s ICE immigration enforcement programme and the Israeli military, and another urging the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to cancel its £330 patient data contract with the NHS.