Toolkit
WFP and Palantir
In February 2019 the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Palantir, a data analytics firm, announced a new partnership aimed at helping WFP use its data to streamline the delivery of food and cash-based assistance. However, their choice of Palantir as a partner has received significant criticism from human rights, humanitarian and technology-for-good organisations.
As a private sector company that has previously provided services to the US military, significant concerns were raised about data privacy and ownership of data in relation to humanitarian principles and standards. An open letter was sent to WFP expressing deep concern about the partnership and various commentaries on the wider risks to the humanitarian sector have been published.
At the time of writing, this is an ongoing issue, and the actual impact on WFPs humanitarian mandate and operations are unknown, but the concerns raised and the negative perception of their decision-making process is likely to have continuing repercussions.
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