Palantir Engineers Granted Access to 1.5 Million NHS Staff Directory

Health service employees have expressed alarm after engineers from the technology company Palantir were granted NHS email accounts, providing potential access to a directory containing the contact details of up to 1.5 million staff members.

According to reporting by The Guardian on April 8, 2026, personnel from Palantir working on the Federated Data Platform (FDP) for NHS England have also been granted access to internal Microsoft Teams groups and NHS SharePoint filesharing systems.

The access is linked to the use of NHS.net email accounts, which typically allow users to view a comprehensive directory of health service personnel. Evidence reviewed by The Guardian confirms that at least six Palantir engineers supporting the FDP rollout have been assigned these accounts.

The Federated Data Platform Contract

Palantir secured a £300 million contract in 2023 to deliver the Federated Data Platform. NHS England describes the FDP as a tool designed to connect patient records that were historically held across disparate systems.

The platform is intended to improve operational efficiency across the health service by enabling staff to:

• Manage waiting lists more effectively
• Allocate appointments
• Accelerate the speed of diagnoses
• Personalise patient treatments

This initiative is part of a wider government strategy to digitally transform the NHS, aiming to move operations from analogue to digital to reinvent the delivery of healthcare.

Ethical Concerns and Privacy Alarms

While the use of internal systems by private contractors is common, the involvement of Palantir has sparked ethical debates among staff, patients, and human rights campaigners. These concerns stem from the company’s association with military technology and AI-powered surveillance.

Rory Gibson, a resident doctor, has voiced strong opposition to the arrangement, citing a lack of consent regarding the sharing of personal contact information with employees of a firm linked to surveillance and warfare.

I – as a doctor – absolutely don’t want my personal email and number to be accessible to someone who works for Palantir on the NHS, and might next month be working on systems for drone strikes. NHS staff have not consented to sharing their email addresses with Palantir staff.

Rory Gibson, resident doctor

In response to the concerns, a spokesperson for Palantir defended the access to NHS systems.

This is normal practice for government suppliers.

Palantir spokesperson