<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/02/seeing-stones-pandemic-reveals...> Covid has given Peter Thiel’s secretive US tech company new opportunities to operate in Europe in ways some campaigners find worrying Daniel Howden, Apostolis Fotiadis, Ludek Stavinoha, Ben Holst Fri 2 Apr 2021 22.11 BST Last modified on Sat 3 Apr 2021 12.15 BST The 24 March, 2020 will be remembered by some for the news that Prince Charles tested positive for Covid and was isolating in Scotland. In Athens it was memorable as the day the traffic went silent. Twenty-four hours into a hard lockdown, Greeks were acclimatising to a new reality in which they had to send an SMS to the government in order to leave the house. As well as millions of text messages, the Greek government faced extraordinary dilemmas. The European Union’s most vulnerable economy, its oldest population along with Italy, and one of its weakest health systems faced the first wave of a pandemic that overwhelmed richer countries with fewer pensioners and stronger health provision. The carnage in Italy loomed large across the Adriatic. One Greek who did go into the office that day was Kyriakos Pierrakakis, the minister for digital transformation, whose signature was inked in blue on an agreement with the US technology company, Palantir. The deal, which would not be revealed to the public for another nine months, gave one of the world’s most controversial tech companies access to vast amounts of personal data while offering its software to help Greece weather the Covid storm. The zero-cost agreement was not registered on the public procurement system, neither did the Greek government carry out a data impact assessment – the mandated check to see whether an agreement might violate privacy laws. The questions that emerge in pandemic Greece echo those from across Europe during Covid and show Palantir extending into sectors from health to policing, aviation to commerce and even academia. A months-long joint investigation by the Guardian, Lighthouse Reports and Der Spiegel used freedom of information laws, official correspondence, confidential sources and reporting in multiple countries to piece together the European activities of one of the most secretive companies in the world. The findings raise serious questions over the way public agencies work with Palantir and whether its software can work within the bounds of European laws in the sensitive areas where it is being used, or perform in the way the company promises. Greece was not the only country tempted by a Covid-related free trial. Palantir was already embedded in the NHS, where a no-bid contract valued at £1 was only revealed after data privacy campaigners threatened to take the UK government to court. When that trial period was over the cost of continuing with Palantir came in at £24m. The company has also been contracted as part of the Netherlands’ Covid response and pitched at least four other European countries, as well as a clutch of EU agencies. The Palantir one-pager that Germany’s health ministry released after a freedom of information request described Europe as the company’s “focus of activities”. Founded in California in 2003, Palantir may not have been cold-calling around European governments. It has, at times, had a uniquely powerful business development ally in the form of the US government. On 23 March, the EU’s Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) received an email from their counterparts at the US CDC, extolling their work with Palantir and saying the company had asked for an introduction. Palantir said it was normal practice for some of its “government customers to serve as reference for other prospective customers”. It said the ECDC turned down its invitation “out of concern of a risk of the contact being perceived as prejudicing ECDC’s independence”. [...]