"Palantir extends reach into British state as it gets access to sensitive FCA data", 22 March 2026

Palantir is to be granted access to a trove of highly sensitive UK financial regulation data, in a deal that has prompted fresh concerns about the US AI company’s deepening reach into the British state, the Guardian can reveal.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has awarded Palantir a contract to investigate the watchdog’s internal intelligence data in an effort to help it tackle financial crime, which includes investigating fraud, money laundering and insider trading...

The deal is part of the FCA’s drive to use digital intelligence to better focus resources on rule-breaking among the 42,000 financial services firms it regulates, from major banks to crypto exchanges.

The deal has raised concerns inside the FCA. One source said: “Once Palantir understands how we detect money-laundering threats, how do we know that they are ethically reliable enough not to go to share that information?”.

Palantir has previously defended its work, saying it has led to about 99,000 extra operations being scheduled in the NHS, helped UK police tackle domestic violence and that it “takes a rigorous approach to respecting human rights”.

The FCA said that the terms of the contract meant Palantir would be a “data processor” not a “data controller” – meaning that it could only act on instruction from the regulator, which said it would retain exclusive control over the encryption keys for the most sensitive files and the data would be hosted and stored solely in the UK. Palantir will have to destroy data after completion of the contract and any intellectual property derived from the data trawling should be retained by the FCA...

The FCA said Palantir could not copy the data to train its products. Palantir referred a request for comment to the FCA.

A spokesperson for the FCA said: “Effective use of technology is vital in the fight against financial crime and helps us identify risks to the consumers we serve and markets we oversee. We ran a competitive procurement process and have strict controls in place to ensure data is protected.”