The East Midlands Special Operations Unit (Emsou) has ended a two-year trial of Palantir Technologies’ Foundry platform and instructed the U.S. company to demonstrate that it has cut all connections to police systems and deleted the data it held, the regional serious-crime unit told the BBC on Monday.
Emsou, which investigates murder, terrorism and major drug networks across Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire, began the pilot in October 2024 to test whether Palantir’s data-integration tools could speed complex inquiries without eroding accountability. The unit confirmed that Leicestershire Police records were fed into Foundry, which uses machine-learning techniques to search large datasets.
Why the contract stops now
Regional Assistant Chief Constable Ian Green said the trial included independent review and strict governance, but Home Office funding for the project has ended. After assessing future funding streams and expected benefits, Emsou decided not to pursue a full contract.
“Following the scoping work and assessment of what it would deliver, including our future funding streams, we have taken the decision not to take the project further,” Green said. He added that the unit would still explore technology to target organised crime, but without Palantir on the current terms.
Emsou declined to disclose which additional datasets were used, citing operational security, and would not reveal costs because of commercial confidentiality. The Home Office referred questions back to the force statement.
Palantir’s wider UK footprint
Palantir remains embedded across British public services, including NHS trusts and multiple police forces. The company told the BBC that other forces had used its software to identify domestic-abuse risks, dismantle ATM theft gangs and uncover corruption, and it pointed to operational gains at University Hospitals of Leicester and Sherwood Forest Hospitals.
Critics, however, have campaigned against Palantir contracts over the firm’s work with U.S. immigration enforcement and defence programmes, including AI-enabled planning tools reportedly used in strikes linked to the Iran war. Privacy advocates argue Foundry-style systems can fuse social-media posts, biometrics and licensing data in ways that outpace existing oversight.
Amnesty International UK welcomed Emsou’s decision. Oliver Feeley-Sprague, the charity’s military, security and police director, said Palantir had become “a growing liability for any public body that values human rights and public confidence.”
What happens to the data
The force’s requirement that Palantir prove disconnection and deletion will be closely watched by information-commissioners and rival vendors. Police technology contracts often outlast pilots even when ethics boards raise concerns; a clean exit with verified erasure could become a template for other regions reviewing AI analytics.
For Leicestershire residents whose records entered the trial, Emsou has not announced a public notification scheme. Forces typically treat such pilots as operational tools rather than programmes that trigger individual letters, a practice transparency groups want revisited as AI triage expands.
Implications for policing tech
Monday’s move does not ban Palantir from Britain, but it adds to a patchwork in which some forces advance while others retreat. With Home Office grants tightening and protests targeting Palantir offices, regional units may demand clearer evidence of public benefit before feeding sensitive databases into U.S. cloud platforms.
Emsou said it would continue pursuing serious organised crime through conventional investigative methods and smaller digital projects. The Palantir trial, however, ends with a rare explicit order: prove the plug is pulled, and prove the data is gone.