The United Nations’ World Food Programme is finalizing a five-year renewal of its contract with US data software firm Palantir despite “key privacy concerns” raised in a leaked 2025 internal audit. The audit, seen by PassBlue and FRANCE 24, reveals UN misgivings about allowing Palantir to process data for the world’s largest humanitarian supply chain.
The World Food Programme (WFP) manages one of the biggest biometric databases in the world. Its SCOPE system contains information on millions of people, many of them beneficiaries of global humanitarian aid.
To help the WFP track humanitarian aid and manage its supply-chain data, Palantir developed the Digital Operations and Transformation System (DOTS).
Some WFP personnel have expressed concern that data from the UN agency on beneficiaries could be used to train Palantir’s data systems. Some are apprehensive about partnering with a software company whose technologies have reportedly been used by US authorities in immigration enforcement and by military forces for lethal operations in the Middle East, notably in Iran and Gaza. To quote CEO Alex Karp, Palantir’s product is “used on occasion to kill people.“
I really don’t get why governments think that Palantir has some special capabilities for data processing. They probably have a little in house code that makes setting things up efficient, but there are plenty of ML engineers and data analysts out there that aren’t associated with racial kidnappings and automated bombings of civilians.
Beyond that, they already developed this DOTS system. Get the user manual and code and walk away. If you can’t do that because it’s tied to their infrastructure or not something you own, fire the person who made that deal, walk away, and hire someone to do it right.
The UN is effectively paying Palantir to hand them their data so Palantir can use it for spying purposes. They don’t call the UN a tool of the West for nothing.
Don’t let them do this to your people
