Scotland Yard is using AI tools supplied by US tech company Palantir to monitor staff behavior in an effort to root out failed officers, the Guardian has learned.
The Metropolitan Police had previously refused to confirm or deny whether it had used technology supplied by the company, which also works for the Israeli military and Donald Trump’s ICE operation. It has now confirmed it is using Palantir’s AI to analyze internal data about sickness levels, absence from duty and overtime patterns in an effort to identify potential shortcomings in professional standards.
The Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, criticized the approach as “automatic suspicion”. It states: “Officers should not be subjected to opaque or untested tools that risk misinterpreting volatile workload pressures, illness 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 a failure to properly investigate officers – highlighted by the murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens – to tolerating discriminatory and misogynistic behaviour.
The force said: “There is evidence to suggest a link between significant levels of sickness absence, increased absence or unusually high overtime and failures in standards, culture and behaviour.”
By bringing together data from several existing internal databases, the time-limited pilot of Palantir’s technology was intended to “help us identify these patterns of behavior in our officers and staff” and was “part of our broader effort to raise standards and improve the culture of the Met”.
It added: “Palantir’s systems help identify patterns, but it is executives who investigate further and make any determinations on standards, performance or other issues.”
A spokesperson for the Police Federation said: “Any system that profiles officers using algorithmic patterns should be treated with extreme caution. Policing already operates under the most extensive and deep scrutiny of any profession… If forces are serious about raising standards and public trust, the focus must remain on proper oversight, fair processes and human judgment, not the automation of suspicion.”
Palantir was embroiled in controversy over Peter Mandelson’s role as Keir Starmer’s ambassador to the US before he was fired over ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Global Counsel, a lobbying firm co-owned by Mandelson, works for Palantir, which was co-founded by Trump-supporting tech billionaire Peter Thiel.
Mandelson and Starmer visited Palantir’s technology showroom in Washington, DC, last year and met with its chief executive Alex Karp shortly after Mandelson’s appointment. MPs have called for greater transparency over Palantir’s public sector contracts in the UK, including a £330m deal signed with the NHS in November 2023 to provide a federated data platform and a £240m contract with the Ministry of Defense in December 2025.
Responding to the Met’s Palantir pilot, Martin Wrigley MP, Liberal Democrat member of the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee, said: “I’m concerned about the rights of executives as employees. Bosses spying on employees has been controversial even before some used AI to do so. It feels like Palantir is monitoring every aspect of government. Who is watching Palantir?”
Palantir’s AI is already available for use by a number of other police to assist in investigations as part of services provided through two regional investigative units.
Labor said in its policing white paper last month that it was “committed to supporting policing to responsibly adopt AI at speed and scale”. The party plans to invest more than £115m over the next three years “to support the rapid and responsible development, testing and rollout of AI tools across all 43 forces in England and Wales”.
A Palantir spokesperson said: “We are proud that our software is being used to deliver better public services in the UK. This includes improving police operations, delivering more NHS operations, helping Royal Navy ships stay at sea longer.”
