Palantir lobbied minister to extend AI tools to NHS GP records

Palantir, the US data‑analytics firm co‑founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, used a direct WhatsApp channel to lobby a health minister to consider extending its AI technology into GP records, a move doctors fear could undermine patient trust. The messages were sent in February this year despite GP data being expressly ruled out of scope of Palantir’s existing £330m contract with NHS England to run its federated data platform (FDP).

The WhatsApp logs were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Foxglove, a tech‑equity campaign group, and shared with the Guardian. They appear to be between Palantir’s UK boss Louis Mosley and former health minister Zubir Ahmed and cover several months from July 2025 to March 2026.

In the messages and a briefing document, Palantir urged Ahmed to “get out ahead of” likely “political” opposition from doctors and vocal critics such as Green party leader Zack Polanski and Your Party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. The firm also told the minister that “The FDP is already delivering very strong results – but will deliver even more benefits faster with the right ministerial sponsorship.”

Groups representing doctors and patients, including the British Medical Association, have opposed the integration of GP data into Palantir’s FDP, arguing there is a lack of trust in a company that also works for the Israeli military and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government announced the deal three years ago, it said: “GP data will not be part of the national platform.”

The lobbying follows reports that ministers are unlikely to end Palantir’s NHS data‑management contract imminently, despite campaigners and two House of Commons committees calling for the company to be forced out by spring. Financial‑Times reporting suggested the contract will be extended, while health secretary Yvette Cooper told parliament the review was ongoing and said there was “a huge long‑term benefit to using the NHS to develop UK sovereign AI”. Bloomberg reported that Labour peer Tom Watson, hired as a full‑time lobbyist by Palantir in September, wrote to Cooper urging her to keep the contract, saying: “I want to ensure that Palantir UK rises to meet the government’s new social‑value tests and helps build Britain’s sovereign technological capability.”

The WhatsApp logs show Palantir telling Ahmed that applying its software, known as Foundry, to GP data could bring “faster access to GPs … more effective and targeted management of frail patients, and more effective preventative care” and would “maintain local control of data”. The executive’s name was redacted in department of health documents, but Palantir did not deny it was Mosley. In one exchange the minister praised a BBC1 Sunday politics programme, saying: “Great work [on] Kuenssberg btw,” Ahmed said.

Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at Foxglove, said the WhatsApps showed Palantir “lobbying to hoover up yet more of the British public’s sensitive personal data”. He added that “It is appalling to see Palantir pressuring the minister to bring GP records into its platform, despite pledges from the government in 2023 that this would not happen,” and that the correspondence “shows they knew just how sensitive this was” and was “telling [that] they made this argument privately, via privileged access to the government”. Tom Dolphin, chair of the BMA council, warned of “scope creep” and said patients must be able to seek care without worrying which operators might have access to duplicates of their personal information.

Marc Farr, chair of the NHS Chief Data and Analytical Officers Network, said: “Palantir appears to be bidding to stretch the sc”