Metropolitan Police using Palantir's AI to monitor officer behavior
Police Federation condemns approach as 'automated suspicion'
Met claims technology helps identify patterns indicating professional failings
Palantir has multiple high-value government contracts in the UK
Labour plans £115m investment for AI adoption across police forces
📖 Full Retelling
The Metropolitan Police in London has confirmed its use of AI tools supplied by US tech company Palantir to monitor staff behavior and identify potential misconduct, following a report by the Guardian that revealed the force is analyzing internal data on sickness levels, absences, and overtime patterns to root out failing officers. The Police Federation has strongly condemned this approach as 'automated suspicion,' warning that such tools risk misinterpreting unsustainable workload pressures, sickness or overtime as indicators of wrongdoing. With 46,000 officers and staff, the Met is the UK's largest police force and has faced numerous controversies, including failures in vetting officers highlighted by Wayne Couzens' murder of Sarah Everard, and the toleration of discriminatory behavior. The force claims there is evidence suggesting a correlation between significant levels of sickness, increased absences, or unusually high overtime and professional failings, justifying their use of Palantir's technology as part of efforts to 'drive up standards and improve the Met's culture.' While the Met clarifies that officers make final determinations on standards or performance issues rather than the AI itself, the deployment has raised concerns about transparency and oversight, especially given Palantir's connections to political figures including Peter Mandelson and its existing £330m NHS and £240m Ministry of Defence contracts.
🏷️ Themes
AI surveillance, Police accountability, Technology ethics
Palantir Technologies Inc. is an American publicly traded company that develops data integration and analytics platforms enabling government agencies, militaries, and corporations to combine and analyze data from multiple sources. Its flagship products—Gotham (for intelligence and defense) and Found...
Inappropriate conduct or illegal actions by police in official capacity
Police misconduct is inappropriate conduct and illegal actions taken by police officers in connection with their official duties. Types of misconduct include among others: sexual offences, coerced false confession, intimidation, false arrest, false imprisonment, falsification of evidence, spoliation...
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), commonly known as the Metropolitan Police, Met Police, or the "Met", is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and crime prevention within Greater London. In addition, it is responsible for specialised tasks throughout the United Kingdom, ...
Met police using AI tools supplied by Palantir to flag officer misconduct Exclusive: Police Federation condemns deployment of US firm’s tech to analyse behaviour as ‘automated suspicion’ Scotland Yard is using AI tools supplied by the US tech company Palantir to monitor staff behaviour in an attempt to root out failing officers, the Guardian has learned. The Metropolitan police has previously declined to confirm or deny whether it used technology supplied by the company, which also works for the Israeli military and Donald Trump’s ICE operation . It has now confirmed that it is using Palantir’s AI to analyse internal data about sickness levels, absences from duty and overtime patterns in an effort to identify potential shortcomings in professional standards. The Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, criticised the approach as “automated suspicion”. It said: “Officers must not be subjected to opaque or untested tools that risk misinterpreting unsustainable workload pressures, sickness or overtime as indicators of wrongdoing.” With 46,000 officers and staff, the Met is the UK’s largest police force and has faced a wave of controversies, ranging from failures to properly vet officers – highlighted by Wayne Couzens’ murder of Sarah Everard – to the toleration of discriminatory and misogynistic behaviour. The force said: “There is evidence to suggest a correlation between significant levels of sickness, increased absences or unusually high overtime, and failings in standards, culture and behaviour.” By bringing together data from multiple existing internal databases, the aim of the time-limited pilot of Palantir’s technology was to “help us identify these patterns of behaviour in our officers and staff” and was “part of our wider effort to drive up standards and improve the Met’s culture”. It added: “Palantir’s systems help to identify the patterns, but it is officers who then explore further and make any determinations on standards, performance or ...
