Met Police Palantir pilot: The DPIA that raises more questions than answers

- The Metropolitan Police (the Met) is the UK's largest police force, covering London. This article concerns its pilot programme with Palantir, a US data-analytics company (co-founded by Peter Thiel) infamous for providing surveillance and predictive policing software to government agencies, including US immigration enforcement and the military. - A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is a UK legal document required under data-protection law (GDPR / UK Data Protection Act). It must be published before a public body deploys high-risk data-processing technology. The article argues the Met's DPIA for the Palantir pilot is inadequate — vague about what data will be used, how algorithmic decisions work, and what safeguards exist. - This matters because the pilot could pave the way for permanent, London-wide deployment of Palantir's "Foundry" platform, centralising vast police datasets (crime records, ANPR camera reads, communications data) and enabling AI-driven analysis and decision-support. Civil-liberties groups warn of unchecked surveillance, algorithmic bias, and eroded privacy — issues already documented in Palantir's US deployments.