NHS apologizes after Palantir staff accessed identifiable UK patient data without consent

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The UK's National Health Service has formally apologized after admitting that staff at data analytics firm Palantir Technologies were granted access to identifiable patient records, contrary to prior public assurances. Palantir was awarded a £330 million contract in 2023 to build a Federated Data Platform intended to operate on pseudonymized data only. A whistleblower exposed internal emails indicating Palantir engineers had viewed live patient records using so-called 'break-glass' emergency access for routine debugging and data integrity checks. The NHS acknowledged the lapse following an internal review and has suspended all non-essential Palantir access pending a full audit. The UK's Information Commissioner's Office has launched a formal investigation into the potential data protection breach.

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