PALANTIR is set to sue Sadiq Khan for blocking a £50m contract between the US tech giant and the Metropolitan Police, according to reports.
In May, the London mayor vetoed the deal with would have seen Palantir support Scotland Yard with AI technology over concerns about the procurement process.
A spokesperson for Khan’s office said at the time that they had “concerns about using public money to support firms that act contrary to London’s values.”
Alongside its links to the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), Palantir has also been used by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to target, identify and locate immigrants.
The firm's co-founder Peter Thiel has also come under fire for his comments around the NHS, which he said needed "ripping from the ground" and starting over, along with a 22-point manifesto published by Palantir that was condemned as "evil" and "disturbing".
But now, according to The Times, Palantir’s lawyers have written to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) in a pre-action letter, notifying Khan that they will press ahead with challenging the decision in court to overturn it.
“We don’t take this decision lightly but we cannot stand by if procurement of our software is being politicised in this way,” a company source told the newspaper.
Palantir has been awarded more than £670m worth of government contracts in the past few years. This includes a £330m contract with NHS England relating to patient data, and a £240m contract with the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
In June, the firm also won a £9m contract to supply and manage the software behind licensing for firearms, explosives and poison.
Last week, meanwhile, the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee published a report titled "Rewiring the state: Delivering digital government", which assessed Palantir's influence in the UK.
The report warned that the UK Government "appears to be worryingly comfortable" with how dependent the public sector is on a small number of large digital and technology providers, such as Palantir.
Of all the technology providers that the public sector relies on, the committee ruled that "Palantir concerns us most", saying that its presence "represents an unacceptable point of weakness".
The report concluded: "In the United States it has supplied software for that country’s military and immigration services, supporting highly controversial policies and activities.
"Its co-founder has criticised the concept of a national health service and the company has issued a manifesto that makes explicitly political arguments, undermining what the head of their UK and European business told us.
The report highlighted how Palantir has increased its presence across the public sector "despite this clear mismatch with UK values".
It went on: "We, however, are of the view that Palantir should not have such a significant role in the UK public sector, and that it is far from the only company capable of providing the data analysis ‘middleware’ required by public bodies."
