🤬 FEMA Tells States to Hand Public Health Data Over to Palantir (Peter Thiel)
From Article at Daily Beast
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fema-tells-states-to-hand-public-health-data-over-to-palantir
FEMA Tells States to Hand Public Health Data Over to Palantir
The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency urged health officials in “all states and territories” to provide “daily” updates on ventilator availability for the novel coronavirus directly to the data mining giant Palantir, according to emails shared with The Daily Beast and confirmed by FEMA.
Palantir, co-founded by key Trump ally Peter Thiel, signed government contracts last month worth approximately $24.8 million to provide the Department of Health and Human Services with data-management software to track health-infrastructure deficiencies and forecast where future needs will emerge, through a platform known as HHS Protect.
The company’s tools integrate a staggering 187 data sets containing information on everything from hospital inventories, medical supply chains, diagnostic and geographic testing data, demographic stats and more.
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The data was “to be submitted to HHS Protect directly or through other specified channels,” the spokesperson continued: “HHS Protect was set up specifically for this response effort by Palantir, a contractor working on consolidating the data.”
The emails were acquired by the watchdog group Accountable.US through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with The Daily Beast. Accountable.US President Kyle Herrig said the emails raised troubling questions about the private company’s direct access to data with implications for both the public health response and for reopening the economy.
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Zuboff saw it instead as the latest example of tech companies gaining the upper hand over governments and using it for private enrichment.
“Will this become a lucrative opportunity for Palantir to monetize public data, and how will we know? Palantir is a black box,” she said.
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