Governments hand core services to Big Tech firms like Palantir and Google
Public agencies from the UK health service to a Brazilian state are deepening ties with Palantir and Google, raising questions about data privacy, dependence and the role of private firms in government.
Public agencies around the world are increasingly relying on the same technology companies that dominate consumer digital life, and the arrangement is drawing growing scrutiny. Palantir supplies data-integration systems to government bodies across health, security and economic policy, while Google and Microsoft provide education, communication and office tools to people in many countries. Together, these firms are becoming embedded in the infrastructure that governments use to run daily public business.
The clearest sign of unease comes from the United Kingdom. The government is reviewing a £330 million contract with Palantir for the National Health Service, with concerns raised about confidentiality and about the degree to which the health service would become dependent on a single private supplier. The review is taking place even as Reuters has reported improvements in NHS waiting-list and hospital discharge figures during the same period, a reminder that the technology is being judged both on its performance and on its risks.
Concerns extend beyond Britain. The New York Times reported in May 2025 that Palantir engineers were organizing Internal Revenue Service taxpayer data within the company's Foundry platform. The Washington Post has documented the company's expanding work with the military and with immigration enforcement. Such cases raise a central question: when sensitive records about citizens flow through privately built systems, who controls them, and who is accountable when something goes wrong?
Google's role is taking shape at the regional level as well. In the Brazilian state of Paraná, Celepar, the state technology company, distributes Google services across government departments under an artificial intelligence strategy the state calls AI-First. The strategy covers 52 departments and agencies, includes 5,000 licenses for a chat application, and has so far deployed 1,316 large language model agents. The plan envisions 36,000 employees, roughly 30 percent of the state workforce, and all 399 municipalities.
The projects under way span a wide range of public responsibilities. They include emergency management, agriculture, cancer analysis, policing and the integration of migrants. Five other Brazilian states are reportedly considering adopting similar arrangements. The three states studied in the reporting together have 61.6 million residents and about $90.5 billion in agricultural output in 2024, a figure that exceeds the output of Germany and Italy and approaches that of France.
A preliminary search also found Google contracts or partnerships in Chile, Malaysia, Kuwait, Israel and Rwanda, and an agreement has been reported with the African Union Commission. The pattern suggests that the model of close collaboration between governments and large technology firms is spreading well beyond a single country.
The implications remain difficult to pin down. The risks to data privacy and their effects on residents are hard to measure, and it is not yet clear whether deeply embedded technology companies will reshape state capacity and public legitimacy over time. The reporting acknowledges potential benefits, such as faster services and better analysis, but says the harms of these arrangements have not been proven. For now, the expansion of Big Tech into public services is advancing faster than the public's ability to evaluate its consequences.
Source: fastcompany.com
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