Berlin, San Francisco The US data company Palantir has defended the use of its evaluation software by German security authorities against criticism. The software enables German police authorities to “process their lawfully collected data faster and more effectively,” said the company’s strategy chief for Europe, Jan Hiesserich, the Handelsblatt.
“It is our customers who determine which data is relevant to the investigation in accordance with the relevant legal provisions.” Hiesserich emphasized: “Palantir brings the software to the data, not the data to the software.”
The Federal Constitutional Court intends to announce its judgment on automated data analysis (“data mining”) to prevent criminal offenses (“predictive policing”) this Thursday. The Society for Freedom Rights (GFF) had filed a lawsuit against the corresponding state law monitoring powers of the police in Hesse and Hamburg.
Data analysis with special software enables the security authorities to create complex profiles at the push of a button. The software analyzes various databases and can recognize patterns, for example. In Hessen, the Palantir program “Gotham” is used for the platform known as “Hessendata”. From the point of view of the complainants, this violates the informational self-determination guaranteed in the Basic Law.
Palantir strategy chief Hiesserich is relaxed about the Karlsruhe verdict. “We welcome the court’s efforts to clarify under what circumstances and how police authorities can process their lawfully collected data,” he said.
New analysis method enabled arrest during raids against so-called Reich citizens
The company also sees itself armed in the event that the judges set limits on the use of data analysis. “Thanks to its high degree of configurability, Palantir software can be flexibly adapted to any new legal framework,” said Hiesserich.
Hesse’s Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU) emphasized the advantages of the new technology at the hearing in Karlsruhe in December last year: The security agencies would have to keep up with digitization.
>> Read also: Artificial intelligence at the front: Can modern software fundamentally change war?
Hessen is a pioneer and has been working with the “Hessendata” platform since 2017. Beuth said the software has immense added value for police analysis. A complete picture only emerges when all the pieces of the puzzle are put together. With the huge amounts of data, it will hardly be possible to do this manually. And time is a decisive factor, especially when it comes to defending against terrorist threats.
A ministry employee described how the method used in the major raid against so-called Reich citizens enabled an arrest: Thanks to “Hessendata” it was noticed that a number from a telephone surveillance in Bavaria was once given in a traffic accident. In this way, the whereabouts and personal details of a suspect could have been determined.
Initially, only data from the police database is evaluated. However, victims and witnesses are also recorded there – or someone who once reported a scratch on the car. The GFF, which initiated the review in Karlsruhe, sees the risk that external data will also be included in the analysis, for example from social networks. The system invites you to feed in more and more information.
Privacy advocates also express reservations
During the hearing, Beuth assured that there was no connection to the Internet and no automated access to data from social networks. The minister had previously told journalists that, under certain conditions, data could also be imported from outside. But that is the exception and not the rule.
Privacy advocates also have reservations for other reasons. In Hesse, more than 2000 police officers work with the system, even if they are only activated for their area of responsibility. State data protection officer Alexander Roßnagel criticized that there were too many authorized persons.
Palantir pointed out that the software offers a variety of data protection-related functionalities that facilitate the responsible handling of data. “The ability of the human investigator, not any automated evaluation of data, is decisive for the success of the investigation,” said Paula Cipierre, who is responsible for data protection and data ethics at Palantir, the Handelsblatt. Police administrators can see at any time which data has been used for which purposes and investigations, Cipierre explained.
A system (“DAR”) with the “Gotham” program is also in use in North Rhine-Westphalia. In Bavaria, a similar platform is currently being introduced (“Cross-procedure research and analysis system”, VeRA). The contract is designed in such a way that other states and the federal government can adopt this system without additional award procedures. Before this happens, the GFF wants Karlsruhe to set strict requirements for the use of the technology.
The two constitutional complaints that the First Senate is now deciding on are directed against the regulation in Hesse and a similar passage in Hamburg, where the legal basis has so far existed.
Speculation about sale of Palantir
The Palantir Group has been making losses for years. When presenting the quarterly figures on Monday, CEO Alexander Karp had to report a loss of $374 million on sales of $1.91 billion in the 2022 fiscal year. Speaking to analysts, Karp hinted that Palantir could be a takeover target.
Literally, Karp had said: “I think there will be a lot of interest in buying our software and possibly us.” Speculation about a possible purchase of the company had meanwhile caused Palantir’s shares to rise by more than 20 percent.
With a market capitalization of around $20 billion, a takeover is currently difficult to imagine, said analyst Tyler Radke of US bank Citi. “60 percent of sales are tied to government contracts,” said Radke. Should Palantir be sold, government customers could be put off.
More: Palantir co-founder Alex Karp: “Software can be used as a weapon”