DATA PATROL

Palantir Working With Local Police, ICE for Federal Funding

The company has given local police access to databases that don't require warrants.

Peter Thiel's data-mining company Palantir has been working with local police forces and ICE for federal funding—including giving law enforcement information to “identify and deter people likely to commit crimes” and preemptively stop them, according to Bloomberg. Palantir started working with the Los Angeles Police Department in 2009 on a system that generates “a list of people the department defines as chronic offenders.” The list is given out to officers who are told to stop or monitor these chronic offenders, often using “jaywalking or fix-it tickets” as an excuse. Information from the tickets is then added to the database, creating a rich system of connections and profiles all available to police without a warrant. In 2016, the LAPD arrested a man for having connections to the 18th Street gang—even though he wasn't a member. The man claims he’s been “stopped more than a dozen times” since. ICE reportedly detained two men in Chicago based on “erroneous information in gang databases” that Palantir likely had a role in. Palantir’s systems were used by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office to “integrate information from at least 14 different databases,” including gang lists. The company also has a “$41 million data-mining contract” with ICE.