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Comment by RedTennisRacket | Hacker News Reader

FOIAs are not made to companies, they are made to government entities. But yes, of course you can make FOIA requests to government entities we work with (the law guarantees you this privilege), and about the work we do with them -- reporters do this all the time.

In some of the more liberal countries the things we do with the government are even part of public record and you can find contracts and services we provide them etc documented online without having to do any kind of request.

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Yep, and they get squashed for "national security" reasons because learning how gangbangers are tracked will also let the $current_enemy_in_the_war_on_terror know how they are being selected for drone strikes.

People FOIA palantir related contract successfully all the time, esp. in local law enforcement. If you try to FOIA certain other government institutions, then yes, you might get that answer.

Of course palantir has no input on that in any way. Certain government agencies and activities are excepted from FOIA (and for very good reasons), but if you think it should not be that way (or that the rules should be different) then you should take political action.

How do I determine everything Palantir knows about me, and all the ways they've used and shared that data?

i too would like to know the answer to this question? is it being selectively ignored?

That is like asking everything Oracle or Postgresql knows about you. It doesn't make sense.

Palantir is software deployed for specific customers. The customers then use Palantir against their data and publicly available data.

Thank you for the clarification. I had always assumed Palantir, like their competitors (Seisent, ChoicePoint, etc), did both services and software.

When I send a FOIA request to [insert law enforcement agency here] and ask them to provide me with the source code and data used to classify me as a criminal so that I can determine whether the chain of reasoning holds up, and the law enforcement agency then needs to turn to Palantir to request that source code and data, what response will they get?

I think there are a couple of misconceptions about FOIAs, our software and the law in general here...

- FOIAs cannot be used to obtain specific information about persons, this kind of information is protected. In the EU under the GDPR however, you can get some of this information (about yourself only) -- but I think law enforcement agencies are probably exempt from this (not sure, but would make sense.)

- Our software does not make decisions on who is or is not a criminal in an automated fashion (or indeed any fashion). In fact, law enforcement can not make such a decision at all, ever -- only a judge in a court can deem you a criminal. Law enforcement can merely decide that you are a suspect. (And again, this is also not something our software (or any software anywhere) decides in an automated fashion.) So there isn't really a 'chain of reasoning' here

- When you actually ARE accused of a crime (this would happen in a court, and only if there is substantial evidence against you), you will be told what the crime is and why you are suspected of the crime. Thus the 'chain of reasoning' will be presented to you, and be available for verification by anyone participating in the court case (including, depending on country, e.g. a jury)

There have been court cases already wherein, for example, a person was stopped for a DUI and subjected to a breathalyzer test. The defense lawyer in that case requested access to the source code of the firmware running on the breathalyzer device in order to determine if it was even a reliable source of accusatory evidence-gathering. It is under that sort of situation I imagine a law enforcement body being led to turn to Palantir to request full source code of the Palantir system, description of its algorithms, data it uses, etc. In the breathalyzer case, the source code was actually turned over and they discovered it to be of deplorable quality, with many features such as in the case of any internal failure, returning an illegally-drunk answer without otherwise indicating any fault.

In another similar case, someone issued a citation for speeding by an automated camera system requested the source code for the firmware running on that system. The court greed this was a reasonable request, and they issued a court order demanding the police department turn it over. The police went to the company they got the device from and found that they had no right to request the source. They had no right to know how the system they'd purchased and were using to charge people with infractions even operated. I expect this would be what would happen with Palantir.

Here in Belgium, every speeding fine you get mentions the number of the calibration report of the camera and supposedly you can request this report and if it's absent, incorrect or outdated you don't pay the fine.

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