Volt critica l’uso di Palantir da parte della polizia. Sovranità digitale anziché illusione di sicurezza dagli Stati Uniti

Volt Baden-Württemberg rejects the legislative package introduced by the state cabinet on Tuesday for the planned use of surveillance software Palantir strictly. We are committed to the state legislature rejecting this law. The promised benefit against terrorism has not yet been shown with Palantir in Germany. The software is often only used in other federal states against citizens for property crimes. We stand by it: Anyone who chooses Palantir today is also committing themselves in the long term and endangering the basic rights of the population.

„We support an efficient police force that works with modern means –especially when it comes to organized crime or terrorism“, emphasizes Volt legal expert Jeremy Ben Zimmermann. „But Palantir is the wrong partner.“

Key criticisms:

Origin & Dependence: Palantir was co-founded by libertarian U.S. billionaire Peter Thiel, a close confidant and financier of the Trump administration. Such an origin makes the software highly problematic for use in critical security infrastructure.

Lack of transparency & loss of control: It remains unclear whether Palantir Gotham actually works in accordance with data protection law in Germany and the EU – there is no way to check the source code or independently control the data flow. It would be naive to believe that personal information –possibly incorrectly linked to crimes– would be safe from access from the United States.

Violation of the rule of law: The Society for Freedom Rights (GFF) has filed a constitutional complaint against Palantir regulations, including in Bavaria, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It criticizes the fact that the mass analysis of citizen data violates the fundamental right of informational self-determination and telecommunications secrecy – and calls for effective control and transparency. Also the legal scholar Dr. Botta from the German Research Institute for Public Administration points out the problem areas. In particular, the use of data analysis by the police would only be permitted “for a particularly important legal interest – such as the protection of life”.

Strategic wrong decision: The introduction of Gotham is not a simple software installation. It is a strategic operating model that entails training, dependencies and long-term integrations. The promised later switch to EU software seems unrealistic in this context.

No proven benefit: There is no reliable scientific evaluation. In Hesse it is repeatedly pointed out that the software was used to prevent a terrorist attack in 2018. However, according to research by NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung, in practice in Bavaria, for example, crimes against property and assets such as gang theft are more often involved, not terrorism.

Volt therefore demands:

Securing digital sovereignty: Europe must develop and operate security-relevant software itself – independent of third countries and individual entrepreneurs with authoritarian worldviews.

Promote open source solutions: Volt calls for investments in open source software that is controlled and further developed by the EU or its member states. This is the only way to ensure democratic control.

Using existing best practices: The Hessen Police Innovation Hub 110 is a positive example of digital transformation in police work. An EU-oriented development of digital tools, apps and analysis methods in transparent public structures has been taking place there since 2020.

No unnecessary time pressure: There is no such security emergency that a hasty introduction is necessary. The EU alternative should be awaited and supported.

Respect the rule of law: Decisions of this scope may not be made against applicable fundamental rights and data protection principles. It must not be left to courts to overturn wrong political decisions. This damages trust in politics.

Volt stands for a police force that works effectively, democratically controlled and technically confident –not an agency with intelligence tools and blind dependence on US corporations.”

It’s a matter of time before we have it in Europe. Each event it will be reintroduced. It’s not necessarily I am against the principle having more security features, but more that I am against American software that can be perhaps used for other purposes as well.

What if tomorrow all smokers are enemies. What if tomorrow all green eyed people should be stopped (and you can imagine some more real examples). Such tools can be used in nefarious ways as well and there will be no good overview of who is using it. We cannot properly see what future governments will be like. Only that they can change rapidly.

They can’t help themselves – shiny new toys and more AI.

The other one is HikVision networked cameras being installed all over the place in many countries. A company partially owned by the Chinese state.

https://www.thejournal.ie/investigates-hikvision-surveillance-6755381-Jul2025/

The Snowdon leaks from 2013 have been forgotten. Fuck knows what they are doing now. Every: message, email, search, connection, Angela Merkel phone tapped, under sea cables tapped all searchable by the US. Research showed it never prevented a single attack. Let’s have more of that please.

Volt is right on this.

But why I like to put my trust in Bond villains.