A Maine court filing puts Palantir's ICE database in evidence, weeks before Britain's £330m decision

A warning call about a watchlist

On 20 January, Polyxenia Pantos photographed an arrest in Portland, Maine, from a few car lengths away, according to a federal court filing↗ ¹. Hours later, a Homeland Security agent ran the car's plate and phoned the registered owner, Carlyn Williams, to warn that people "doing things like that might get added to a domestic terrorism watchlist" ¹. The call, and the database behind it, became public evidence on Friday ¹.

That database is one Britain is still paying for. Ministers in London must decide within months whether to break Palantir's £330m NHS contract, and the company's shares were changing hands in mid-August at roughly 74 times sales ²³.

Case files that became border lookouts

The redacted class action says the agent, "Agent J.C.", opened records in the Investigative Case Management (ICM) system on at least six volunteer observers of ICE arrests; the government counts eight ¹. Two people filmed at a Home Depot were tagged "Threat to Law Enforcement, Professional Protestor", and their photos went to a border officer for a facial-recognition run through an app called Mobile Query ¹.

A 2016 DHS privacy assessment cited in the filing says ICM records are automatically shared with CBP's TECS system as "lookout records" for screening travelers ¹. One observer now faces secondary inspection at any border crossing until at least January 2027 ¹.

ICE keeps paying to run it

ICE paid Palantir to build ICM in 2014 on its Gotham software ¹. A five-year support contract awarded in 2022 was worth up to about $96 million, and a 2025 add-on of nearly $30 million funds a successor platform, ImmigrationOS: almost $126 million of ICM work since 2022 ¹⁴.

DHS calls the suit "meritless", and the dismissal motion↗ argues the conduct was isolated and prohibited by policy ¹⁴. Former acting ICE director Todd Lyons told Representative Maxwell Frost that ICE "does not maintain any kind of database of U.S. citizens protesting ICE activities" ¹. The filing describes observer records flowing automatically into border screening ¹.

Britain owes an answer by December

More than 44,000 people have filed Article 21 objections↗ obliging NHS England to justify processing their data on Palantir's Federated Data Platform, or stop ². Two Commons select committees want the break clause in the £330m, seven-year contract used; it takes effect in February 2027 ²⁵. Palantir holds about £670m of UK public contracts ⁵⁶, and the UK is its second-largest market, worth 10 percent of 2025 revenue ⁷.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, in office since July, has not publicly commented; ministers are expected to decide by December ⁵⁷. Palantir's new senior vice-president UK, former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, opened with a letter↗ to MP Clive Lewis tallying almost 130 Palantir statements by Lewis since 2020, which Lewis called an implicit threat: "We are watching you. We are monitoring you." ⁶⁸

What 74 times sales is pricing

In mid-August Palantir traded near $188.75, a $454bn market value, roughly 74 times sales ³, after twelve straight quarters of accelerating growth, 17 to 93 percent, with revenue more than tripling ⁹.

Supporters count two-thirds of hospitals on the platform, Palantir claims 117,000 additional operations, and a July poll↗ still found 65 percent of Britons back ending the deal ²⁷. France has moved its intelligence agencies off Palantir's software; Germany is testing the French replacement ⁷.

No source quantifies what a UK exit would do to a $454bn valuation ³. Permission is what a 74-times-sales multiple has to keep buying, and into the December call the trade the record supports is a sell or a hedge. Two events settle more than the lawsuits: the motion to dismiss pending in Maine, and London's decision, due by December.