DOZENS of campaigners rallied outside the year’s biggest NHS conference today to demand health chiefs and the government pull the plug on US surveillance tech firm Palantir.

The NHSConfedExpo, organised by the NHS Alliance, brings together health policy-makers from around the country, but has in recent times been a target for protest by those concerned at the encroachment of the US-based data analytics firm on the service.

Palantir has been implicated in genocide as a supplier of AI technologies for battlefield decision-making and the creation of target lists to the IDF as it set about its slaughter of over 75,000 civilians, an estimated 22,000 of them children, and as many as 1,700 health workers in Gaza.

Speakers at the rally included representatives of Unison, Amnesty International, the Good Law Project, Young Struggle Manchester, and Angela, who did not give her surname, from local mental health campaign CHARM, which last year joined demands for Manchester’s Integrated Joint Board to drop the firm.

“As an organisation of service users, survivors, carers, trade unionists and allies, we believe this is about far more than technology,” she said.

“It’s about trust. That is not a minor issue. In mental healthcare, trust can be lifesaving. 

“Healthcare data should be protected by organisations that reflect the stated values of the NHS. These values include care, transparency, accountability and respect for human rights. 

“It should not be handled by firms whose business model is secretive, entwined with opaque state surveillance and military operations who seek to profit from our personal data. 

“Palantir has provided ‘advanced and powerful targeting capability’ for warfare across the globe. Most recently it has aided Israel in genocidal war against the population of Gaza. 

“War inevitably comes with a psychological cost. We need a public, transparent and ethical NHS, fit to protect all citizens which is not associated with the costs of war and surveillance.”

Backing the campaign, Unison assistant general secretary Jon Richards told the Star: “Bringing in a morally dubious firm like Palantir to work with the NHS and UK government is a major concern.

“Unison has written to the health secretary to highlight potential risks to patient data confidentiality and said the firm should be ruled out of the running to develop the Single Patient Record.”

The Department of Health and Social Care was contacted for comment. 

The NHS Alliance declined to comment.