London Mayor Sadiq Khan has blocked a proposed £50 million deal between the Met Police and controversial US tech giant Palantir after City Hall identified what it described as a “clear and serious breach” of procurement rules.
The contract would have seen Scotland Yard use Palantir’s AI technology to automate intelligence analysis in criminal investigations. The deal, first revealed by the Guardian last month, would have marked Palantir’s biggest policing contract in Britain to date.
However, Khan intervened on Thursday to stop the agreement after concerns were raised by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), which is required to approve contracts of that scale.
City Hall said the Met had effectively engaged with only one supplier during the procurement process, raising serious questions over competition, transparency and value for money. Officials also warned the force risked becoming overly dependent on Palantir’s technology.
A spokesperson for Khan said Londoners wanted public money spent only with companies that “share the values of our city”.
MOPAC has not permanently ruled out Palantir from future bids, but said it now wants the Met to launch a fresh procurement process “at pace”.
The decision comes amid growing public and political concern over Palantir’s expanding role across UK public services. The company already holds more than £600 million worth of contracts with organisations including the NHS, the Ministry of Defence, the Financial Conduct Authority and several police forces.
Palantir was co-founded by billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, a prominent supporter of Donald Trump. The company also works with the Israeli military and US immigration enforcement agency ICE.
Its growing influence in Britain has become increasingly controversial. Earlier this year, Palantir chief executive Alex Karp published a manifesto praising American global dominance and suggesting some cultures were inferior to others, comments that one MP compared to “the ramblings of a supervillain”.
While ethical concerns cannot formally be used to exclude companies during public procurement, Khan’s office said the Mayor intends to raise the issue with the government to see whether procurement rules should be changed.
In a letter sent to Met Commissioner Mark Rowley, Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime Kaya Comer-Schwartz said she had received no acceptable explanation for the Met’s failure to seek approval for its procurement strategy.
She described the situation as a “clear and serious breach” of procedural requirements and warned the process had exposed both Scotland Yard and the Mayor’s office to “legal and reputation risks”.
The letter also highlighted concerns over cost escalation. The Met had initially estimated the contract would cost between £15 million and £25 million annually, with the proposed deal sitting at the very top end of that range.
Separately, MOPAC also found that a recent Met trial using Palantir AI to monitor staff behaviour and identify corrupt officers had been awarded directly without open competition. The contract was reportedly kept just below the financial threshold that would have triggered mandatory City Hall approval.
Despite the controversy, Scotland Yard previously praised the technology trial, claiming it helped identify hundreds of officers accused of misconduct, including abusing shift systems, falsely claiming office attendance and failing to disclose Freemason memberships.
Public backlash against Palantir has continued to grow. Hundreds of thousands of people have signed petitions calling for the government to terminate contracts with the company, including its £330 million NHS England deal involving patient and medical data systems.
Critics in Parliament have labelled those agreements “dreadful” and “shameful”, while ministers themselves have reportedly admitted they are “no fan” of the company’s politics.
Palantir’s UK chief executive, Louis Mosley, has repeatedly defended the company, arguing its NHS technology has helped deliver more than 110,000 extra operations and significantly reduced hospital discharge delays.
Meanwhile, police forces already using Palantir’s AI tools have praised the technology as transformative. Bedfordshire Police credited the system with helping dismantle an organised crime gang responsible for stealing £800,000 from cash machines, while other forces say it has dramatically sped up the analysis of evidence gathered from mobile phones and translated foreign-language material.
Khan’s intervention is also likely to complicate the Labour government’s broader push to expand the use of AI in policing. Earlier this year, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood called on police forces to increase AI adoption “at pace and scale” as part of wider plans to modernise policing across Britain.
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