JAN 28, 2026
The CIA-linked tech firm has provided the Israeli military with its technology to assist in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza
ELITE, a tracking tool used by ICE and developed by Palantir, uses data from the government healthcare program Medicaid and other government databases to generate profiles of individuals ICE believes may be deportable.
The EFF said that Palantir is seeking collect vast troves of government data into a single searchable, AI-enabled interface.
Demonstrations opposing ICE operations to round up migrants have grown in size across the country following the agency’s killing Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good in recent weeks.
In both cases, killings were caught on camera and went viral, leading to widespread public anger.
Last year, Palantir received a $30 million contract to design an AI platform, called ImmigrationOS, to “track immigrants’ movements.”
Federal agents in Minneapolis wrestled Alex Pretti to the ground and secured the handgun he was carrying moments before shooting him multiple times, according to a Washington Post analysis of video footage.
Read more: https://t.co/gs55sapKJH pic.twitter.com/0LwulTgqLy
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 25, 2026
Palantir can also access data from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that handles citizenship applications.
During his election campaign, US President Donald Trump vowed to expand deportations and has leaned heavily on tech firms run by CEOs enjoying close ties to his administration.
Since coming to office, Trump has helped Palantir expand its access to US government data. Alex Karp, Palantir’s CEO, claims his firm can assist with everything from battlefield intelligence to tax enforcement.
“Big Tech, including Palantir, is increasingly complicit, normalizing authoritarianism under the guise of a ‘revolution’ led by oligarchs,” according to a public letter calling on tech CEOs to cancel contracts with ICE. The letter has accumulated 450 signatures from tech employees, including from Palantir, Google, and OpenAI.
Last fall, ICE signed a $4.5 million contract with BI2 Technologies for a system that allows agents in the field to identify people by scanning their irises with smartphones.
BI2 says on its website that the technology can identify people in seconds, compared with the hours it can take using fingerprints, by accessing a national database of iris scans built expressly for law enforcement purposes.
Palantir Technologies is among the tech companies that have been implicated in enabling and profiting from Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Its advanced data analytics and AI tools, which supposedly provide “precision targeting,” have helped the Israeli air force carry out mass killings of Palestinian civilians in a calculated and systematic manner with little human oversight.
Palantir supplies the Israeli military with AI platforms that use intelligence data to spit out lists of alleged members of Hamas to kill.
The platforms issue a notification when targets enter their family homes, after which the Israeli military then bombs them, their wives and children, and often everyone else in the building.
Founded in 2003 by Karp and Peter Thiel, Palantir has grown from a secretive data analytics startup to a cornerstone of modern military and intelligence operations.
Initially funded by the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, Palantir’s tech products have become integral to numerous US government agencies, including the FBI, Department of Defense, and various police departments.
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