Palantir Knows Everything About You

Surveillance Tech’s Dark Evolution

Apr 19, 2025

Many are still shocked by the speed and force with which the U.S. government carries out immigration raids—instant, sweeping, often without warning. People are detained, deported, even those who hold legal status. But if this feels new, it’s only because memory is short.

In 2018, a group of 200 Palantir employees signed a letter addressed to CEO Alex Karp, asking the company stop providing tools to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This internal protest was sparked by Palantir's role in providing data-mining software to ICE, which was used for screening undocumented immigrants and planning workplace raids, particularly during the Trump administration’s implementation of family separation policy at the U.S. border.

Though Palantir’s partnership with ICE predated Trump, the administration’s rhetoric and tactics shifted the moral landscape. Raids became indiscriminate. Families torn apart. Long-time residents—many with families, jobs, and community ties—were suddenly swept up and deported. These new tactics were the agency’s attempt to fulfil Trump’s promise to deport “millions of illegal aliens” using a “deportation force.”

Palantir’s employees were stunned to see the very tools they built turned into digital weapons of family separation and displacement.

Karp, often described as a progressive civil libertarian, had previously voiced skepticism of government surveillance. “I didn’t sign up for the government to know when I smoke a joint or have an affair … We have to find places that we protect away from government so that we can all be the unique and interesting and, in my case, somewhat deviant people we’d like to be. ” he once said.

But when it came to ICE, he held the line. “I do not believe these questions should be decided in Silicon Valley by a number of engineers,” he told Bloomberg. He soon renewed the contract with ICE for an additional $42 million.

It’s always easier to pass the responsibility to someone else. When surveillance technologies violate privacy or civil liberties, we blame governments, after all, they were supposed to hold the power, not the tech companies. And in democratic societies, governments are meant to protect the rights and freedoms of their citizens, not undermine them.

But tech giants like Palantir, Google, and Clearview AI aren't just neutral actors. They have great power and influence. They choose what to build, how to build it, and who to sell it to. With that power comes the responsibility to draw ethical lines, or ignore them.

Surveillance tech is a booming business. But profit doesn't cancel accountability. If one company says “no” to unethical contracts, it can shift industry norms. If they all say “yes,” it normalises invasive surveillance.

In the hands of authoritarian regimes, these tools do not stay neutral. They evolve. Surveillance isn’t a shield, anymore, it’s a weapon. It’s no longer used for protection, but for persecution: to track dissidents, silence journalists, intimidate activists, and monitor ordinary citizens into submission. The line between national security and state control evaporates.

In April 2025, ICE awarded Palantir another $30 million to expand its systems for tracking visa overstays and “self-deportations.” Internal leaks and reporting indicate Palantir is actively modifying ICE databases to enable "complete target analysis of known populations," with a focus on individuals who have received final orders of removal.

So, the tools have evolved. The methods refined. And the targets changed.

Today, Palantir holds a £330 million, five-year contract with NHS England granting access to and oversight of sensitive patient data. If the political climate shifts, and pressure from anti-abortion groups increases, it’s not unthinkable that this data could one day be used to identify women seeking abortions.

So, what to do? That’s for you to decide.

Just remember, what defines a person, or a generation, is not the ease of its times, but the courage of its response.

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The Heretic Witch

Palantir Knows Everything About You

Surveillance Tech’s Dark Evolution

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