Correcting the Record: Response to the EFF January 15, 2026 Report on Palantir
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Editor’s Note: This blog post responds to allegations published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in relation to Palantir’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). We believe it’s important to address misconceptions (as we have previously) about our technology and business practices with transparency and factual accuracy.
Introduction
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has long served as a venerable digital rights organization focused on online civil liberties issues. In the past, EFF’s intellectual rigor and careful analysis have served an important function in public discussions about the use of technology. That is why it is particularly important to address instances in which EFF’s recent reporting on Palantir got the story wrong.
EFF’s January 15, 2026 report, “ICE Using Palantir Tool That Feeds On Medicaid Data” makes a number of misleading and incorrect claims about Palantir’s work with the US Federal Government and ICE specifically. Palantir was unfortunately not contacted during the creation of their report, which would have offered us the opportunity to address many of the misconceptions and previously rebutted claims therein.
In the spirit of transparency and open discourse, we outline and respond to these below.
Specific Claims to Address
Here we take specific quotes from the EFF report and, with the aim of good faith transparency, walk through where there may be partial or whole truths, complete inaccuracies, or misleading insinuations that require clarification. We strive to be as exhaustive as possible. We are open to engaging further on these claims with any stakeholders earnestly interested in knowing the real story.
“We also warned about the danger of the Trump administration consolidating all of the government’s information into a single searchable, AI-driven interface with help from Palantir, a company that has a shaky-at-best record on privacy and human rights.”
To be absolutely clear, Palantir is not working on any master database project to unify databases across federal agencies. Palantir has not proposed the US Government build a “master list” for the surveillance of citizens, nor have we been asked to consider building such a system for any customer.
EFF’s statements misrepresent the fundamental reality of government data sharing across agencies, which is subject to, and governed by, data sharing agreements and government oversight. Further, Palantir is not facilitating widespread and unfettered data sharing across our government customers, as each customer instance of our software is legally, technically, and operationally distinct.
The supposed evidence alleging Palantir’s poor “privacy” record cites a September 2020 Privacy International & No Tech For Tyrants report directed at our UK NHS work that reads more as anti-Palantir polemic than factual inquiry. It rehashes a litany of debunked claims about Palantir’s supposed predictive policing work, hollow commitment on PCL protections, lack of transparency in contracting, and questionable relationship to the UK Government. Those allegations have all been addressed in detail on multiple occasions, but notably also in the published annex of that very same report. For more on Palantir’s privacy and governance safeguards, see 1, 2, 3, 4.
Similarly, the statement on Palantir’s “human rights” record cites to a September 2020 report from Amnesty International, the published annex of which also includes our rebuttals to the claims of the same report. Palantir takes a rigorous approach to respecting human rights, from the development to customer use of our products. We also actively support humanitarian missions around the world, from fighting human trafficking, to disaster relief, to the defense of sovereign nations.
“Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address,” 404 Media reports today. “ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.”
EFF’s restatement of claims by 404 Media is misleading. The ELITE tool is used for prioritized enforcement to surface the likely addresses of specific individuals, such as those with final orders of removal or with high severity criminal charges. The purpose of this tool is identifying the location of known foreign nationals who meet criteria for removal, not for mass prioritization of “locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.”
Palantir’s role in this tooling centers on data integration, enabling ICE to incorporate data sources to which it has access (including DHS data and limited data shared by other agencies under a data sharing agreement permitting it to be used for immigration enforcement purposes). This data includes information needed by ICE officers and agents to accurately assess whether an individual can be removed, for instance whether an individual has a court-ordered stay on their removal, or whether they have status that precludes their removal.
“The tool — dubbed Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) — receives peoples’ addresses from the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes Medicaid) and other sources, 404 Media reports based on court testimony in Oregon by law enforcement agents, among other sources.”
The EFF report is misleading in suggesting that ICE may have, through Palantir software, unfettered access to “multiple government sources including HHS records.” While there are instances of limited information sharing between select component agencies of HHS and ICE pursuant to lawful authority, these instances are governed by the same requirements that apply to other components of government under the Privacy Act and other applicable laws and policies.
The ELITE tool reported in 404 Media is a component of the capabilities provided under a previously reported pilot program with ICE. As the article explains (and is detailed above), the application supports workflows aimed at prioritizing specific immigration enforcement actions.
Finally, Palantir’s platforms are built with an indelible audit log — all platform interactions, from data ingest onwards, are subject to detailed logging. Palantir’s platforms are designed with privacy, security, and auditability at their core which, as we’ve said before, make them exceptionally poor tools for abuse.
“This kind of consolidation of government records provides enormous government power that can be abused. Different government agencies necessarily collect information to provide essential services or collect taxes, but the danger comes when the government begins pooling that data and using it for reasons unrelated to the purpose it was collected.”
Indeed, these are real risks. Which is why we’ve clarified — in responses to both the NYT and the Wyden/AOC letter — that we are not building a “master database” for the Federal Government. Such a hypothetical project would be fundamentally at odds with Palantir’s values and our commitment to work in support of liberal democracies.
Moreover, we support efforts to enforce strong privacy protections in government systems, which is why we are advocating for Privacy Act reform. Palantir has been on the cutting-edge of privacy-enhancing technology since our company’s inception. It is the cornerstone of what we do.
“While couched in the benign language of eliminating government ‘data silos,’ this plan runs roughshod over your privacy and security.”
This statement mistakenly represents Palantir’s work with the US Government. All of Palantir’s government contracts and the corresponding deployments of software instances are unique to the contracting agency, with legal, procedural, and technical guardrails in place to protect each agency’s data.
It is also wrong to suggest that any sharing (or so-called ‘merging’) of data across partner agencies implies malicious intent. One need only query terms like ‘government data usage’ or ‘data sharing agreement’ to understand the shape and commonality of efforts by Federal Government agencies to cooperate on initiatives involving limited, purpose-specific information sharing to support legitimate cross-agency workflows. This is a routine aspect of government functioning in the modern age. Further, privacy is not guaranteed by a decentralized, siloed series of government systems in which there is no audit trail or visibility into how data is shared or used. All that is guaranteed by such a fragmented data landscape is that abuse of data sharing and privacy will be harder to systematically guard against or monitor.
“But litigation isn’t enough. People need to keep raising concerns via public discourse and Congress should act immediately to put brakes on this runaway train that threatens to crush the privacy and security of each and every person in America.”
We couldn’t agree more about the importance of public discourse. But the obligation of engaging in public discourse is to do so honorably, in good faith, and with a commitment to facts over all. We are disappointed by the resurfacing of previously debunked or otherwise incorrect claims furthering a narrative that Palantir is leading an effort to spy on Americans and run roughshod over the privacy of our fellow citizens. This is not happening and the principles that underpin our work guard against such misuse of our products.
Conclusion
Palantir has long shared EFF’s commitment to privacy, civil liberties, and security for Americans, and we would have welcomed the opportunity to address the many incorrect claims in their report prior to publication.
We recognize the complexity that our work with the US Government presents, especially during such polarizing times. Palantir has worked with the US Government for two decades and across multiple administrations, and we see it as our enduring mission to support those who work tirelessly to help our institutions function, even when that work is controversial.
We are committed to transparency around the development and responsible use of our products, and hope that future reporting on us focuses on good faith dialogue — that which prioritizes the preservation of humanity in the global commons over conformity to hysteria and polarization. As Hannah Arendt said, “we humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human.”