March 26, 2026
Big Brother in scrubs?
New York City hospitals drop Palantir as controversial AI firm expands in UK
NYC dumps Palantir, UK leans in — fans say “only game in town,” critics yell “Big Brother”
TLDR: NYC’s public hospitals won’t renew Palantir’s contract and will switch to in‑house tools, while the UK faces backlash over expanding Palantir’s NHS role. Commenters are split between privacy alarms (“Big Brother vibes”) and pragmatists saying few firms can do this work, raising big questions about who should hold sensitive health data.
New York City’s public hospitals are breaking up with Palantir, and the internet is treating it like a messy celebrity split. Commenters cheered the move as a win for patient privacy, with one calling it a “pretty bad idea” to let a surveillance-adjacent firm near medical files. Even the hospital’s promise of an “absolute firewall” from immigration authorities didn’t calm nerves; skeptics shot back that legality isn’t the point — it’s the “creepy Big Brother” vibes. Meanwhile, NYC says it’s moving to in-house tools and ending data sharing when the contract expires, which fans framed as the rare “we can build it ourselves” flex.
Across the pond? Drama is boiling. Palantir’s £330m deal with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has activists and some doctors uneasy, while politicians debate whether Britain is getting too cozy with American tech. A health charity warned of “US-style raids” if data is misused; Palantir insists that would be illegal and a breach of contract. Commenters piled on with spicy geopolitics: one predicted European founders are “salivating” for EU cash to build a Palantir rival. Others shrugged that, like it or not, there aren’t many alternatives at Palantir’s scale.
In classic internet fashion, memes flew about “Big Brother in scrubs,” while real talk centered on that controversial clause letting hospitals let Palantir “de-identify” patient info for other uses. The split-screen moment — NYC pulling back as the UK pushes forward — has the crowd asking: who do you trust with your health data?
Key Points
- •NYC Health + Hospitals will not renew its Palantir contract, ending in October, after paying nearly $4m since November 2023.
- •The NYC contract focused on revenue cycle optimization and allowed de-identification of protected health data for non-research purposes with agency permission.
- •NYC Health + Hospitals will transition to in-house systems and cease data sharing or use of Palantir applications after contract expiry.
- •Palantir faces UK privacy scrutiny over a £330m NHS agreement; less than half of health authorities had adopted the system as of last summer.
- •The UK FCA awarded Palantir a contract to analyze internal intelligence data, prompting calls from some MPs and the Liberal Democrats for investigation, while Keir Starmer dismissed over-reliance concerns.