The US technology firm Palantir has secured a 9 million pound contract from the government to run the national firearms database, GB News reported. The deal hands a sensitive piece of national policing infrastructure to a company whose work has drawn scrutiny, and it has reignited debate over the role of large American tech firms in core British public systems.
Under the contract, Palantir will run the database that underpins how firearms licences are managed across the country. According to the report, the new system will help 43 police forces in England and Wales, including the Metropolitan Police, record how they grant, renew and revoke firearms licences, bringing that work onto a single platform run by the company.
The function the system performs sits at the heart of firearms control. Decisions on granting, renewing and revoking licences determine who is legally allowed to hold a firearm, and centralising the record-keeping for those decisions across dozens of forces is intended to standardise how the process is handled throughout England and Wales.
Palantir itself is no stranger to controversy. The firm was co-founded by Alex Karp, and according to the report it is considered controversial because its software has been used by the Israeli military and by United States immigration authorities. Those associations have made the company a lightning rod for criticism wherever it takes on government work.
The decision to award such a contract to Palantir is therefore likely to draw attention to the question of who controls sensitive policing data in Britain. Handing the running of a national firearms database to a US firm with a contested record raises the kind of concerns over data, oversight and foreign involvement that have followed the company elsewhere.
For the police forces involved, the appeal of the system lies in consolidating firearms licensing records that have been handled separately. Bringing 43 forces, including the Met, onto a common database is intended to make the granting, renewal and revocation of licences more consistent and easier to track across England and Wales.
The award marks another expansion of Palantir's footprint within British public services, following its involvement in other government work. As the company takes on the national firearms database, the contract is likely to keep questions about its software, its past clients and its growing role in the United Kingdom firmly in the spotlight.