Palantir and Signal have expressed concerns over European censorship efforts and “undemocratic” practices
Two major US-based tech firms, Palantir Technologies and Signal Foundation, have sounded the alarm over rapidly growing state surveillance and controversial digital control plans sprouting up across Europe.
Tech giant Palantir, known for its long-standing relationship with the CIA, one of its top customers and first investors, will not make a bid for any contracts connected to Digital ID, the firm’s UK boss, Louis Mosley, has said.
“Palantir has long had a policy that we will help democratically elected governments implement the policies they have been elected to deliver, and that does mean that often we are involved in the implementation of very controversial measures,” he told Times Radio on Thursday.
Digital ID is not one that was tested at the last election. It wasn’t in the manifesto. So we haven’t had a clear, resounding public support at the ballot box for its implementation. So it isn’t one for us.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled the ID plan late in September, touting it as a tool to “help combat illegal employment while simplifying access to vital public services for the vast majority of people.” Its critics, however, argued the scheme was a roadmap to blanket surveillance and digital control.
Meanwhile, another US-based tech giant, encrypted messenger Signal, threatened to leave the EU market for good should the bloc push through its Chat Control plan. Signal is known to have links to the CIA as well, albeit less opaque, having received funding from Radio Free Asia, a US propaganda arm bankrolled by the agency.
On Friday, the president of Signal Foundation, Meredith Whittaker, released a statement concerning media reports on what it called a “catastrophic about-face” on Germany’s part, which is now expected to reverse its long-standing opposition to the plan.
“If we were given a choice between building a surveillance machine into Signal or leaving the market, we would leave the market,” Whittaker said, condemning the plan as a “mass scanning” scheme “under the guise of protecting children.”
The Chat Control scheme, officially known as the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR) and deliberated in the EU since 2020, mandates messaging services like Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and others to scan files on users’ devices for highly illicit materials before encryption and sending.
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