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Comment by nickff | Hacker News Reader

The article text seems to indicate that Palantir was offering data analysis software/services to the British government for a nominal fee. It doesn't seem like NHS was selling the data, they just needed some services, and paying £1 was required to bind Palantir in a contract.

This title really seems like click-bait.

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So the NHS wasn't selling the data to Palantir, just giving it away?

The £1 deal is is not relevenat because I am sure people will be annoyed despite it being a free deal or one that costs thousands of pounds. The only thing that matters is whether the data privacy was ensured.

The token amount is just there in the contract to notarize on paper the NHS as the 'client' in the contract, because you anticipate this will be questioned as a dodgy deal.

Is Palantir buying the data or is the NHS using Palantir to analyze it? There's a big difference there.

The title is literally correct, I don’t see any clickbait.

Well it's technically correct, but the government wasn't giving access to Palantir as a favor, they were purchasing data analysis SaaS.

Sorry, they purchased it for £1? Now who's being "technically correct"?

>" Sorry, they purchased it for £1? Now who's being "technically correct"? "

Palantir received one pound; the government paid Palantir for software. The title implies that the government was selling the data, but they were actually getting SaaS for a pittance.

The title could be fixed from "in £1 deal" to "as part of £1 deal".

No ambiguity there, although it doesn't adequately explain how that came about, but that's why there's an article.

Honestly that distinction had never even occurred to me—I was envisioning possible concern over giving access to sensitive personal information to a for-profit multinational.

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