Who controls citizens’ data when critical state functions depend on a private company’s technological infrastructure? And what happens when that same company supplies systems both for running public services and for military operations and population surveillance?
These questions lie at the heart of a European initiative targeting US technology firm Palantir Technologies, which has built a strong presence in sectors such as defense, policing, migration and public health. A total of 127 organizations from 30 countries are calling on European governments and the European Commission to terminate existing public contracts with the company and bar it from new ones.
The signatories include digital rights groups, environmental organizations, trade unions and human rights bodies, among them European Digital Rights (EDRi), Transparency International EU and the European Trade Union Confederation. In Greece, the letter was signed by Homo Digitalis and Naturefriends Greece, whose representatives spoke to TO BHMA about why they believe the company’s growing influence threatens citizens’ rights and the functioning of democratic institutions.
Eleftherios Chelioudakis, co-founder and executive director of Homo Digitalis, said his organization had signed on because Palantir is not a neutral technology provider. He explained that the company’s systems have been used by state authorities abroad for extensive surveillance and analysis of personal data in highly sensitive areas.
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Palantir’s activities do indeed span many areas of government. According to the letter, the company has supplied US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with data analysis tools used to track down migrants, and its software has been deployed in predictive policing programs in the United States. For Homo Digitalis, however, the concern goes beyond where these tools are used to the terms on which they are built into the state apparatus.
Chelioudakis noted that the most serious issue was the lack of meaningful and effective oversight when critical data and public functions come to rely on private companies that operate across borders and fall outside the direct supervision of Greek authorities. In other words, the debate is not only about what the technology can do, but about the balance of power that develops between the public sector and private providers.
Beyond personal data, the letter highlights a broader worry: the dependence of public services on a single private company’s infrastructure. This is the phenomenon known as vendor lock-in, in which embedding a particular system makes replacing the supplier increasingly difficult and costly.
Kaiti Mylona, a member of the environmental and social organization Naturefriends Greece, told TO BHMA that Europe’s growing reliance on one company for critical services threatens both national and popular sovereignty. She argued that Palantir’s access to sensitive data, its reach across different branches of government and the risk of being locked into a single supplier pose significant economic and political risks.
Chelioudakis shared that concern. A partnership, he explained, may begin with a limited scope and specific safeguards, but the more deeply a technological infrastructure becomes embedded in the workings of the state, the harder it becomes to renegotiate the terms or end the arrangement altogether.
What is at stake, then, is not merely economic or technological. It is a state’s ability to retain control over its core functions and to remain accountable to citizens for how their data is used.
The involvement of Naturefriends brings to the fore a less-discussed dimension of technological power: its bearing on quality of life, social justice and peace. Mylona explained that the organization has both an environmental and a social mission, viewing the environment as the sum of natural and human-made factors that shape people’s lives. Seen this way, mass surveillance, the militarization of technology and the concentration of power in private hands are issues directly tied to the group’s principles.
The organization places particular emphasis on the use of artificial intelligence in military systems and in decisions with potentially irreversible consequences. At its fifth congress on October 3, 2026, Naturefriends adopted a Code of Ethics for Artificial Intelligence that includes specific provisions on war, peace and militarization. The code states that ultimate responsibility for such decisions must rest with humans alone.
The letter does more than catalog risks; it sets out concrete demands for governments and European institutions. Chief among them is ending public contracts with Palantir and permanently excluding the company from future procurement. The organizations are also calling for alternative technological solutions, preferably built on open-source software, for transparent safeguards against mass surveillance and for stronger public control over critical digital infrastructure. They further urge European public financial institutions to divest from the company.
For Mylona, protecting democracy requires investment in strong public institutions and the development of technological alternatives that do not deepen dependence on a handful of multinational corporations.
At a time when AI is being rapidly integrated into public administration and an ever-wider range of state functions, efficiency cannot be the sole yardstick. Who collects the data, who designs the systems, who controls them and who answers for the consequences of their use are questions that go to the heart of how democracy works.
As the Palantir case shows, the debate over Europe’s digital sovereignty is not just about whether the continent has the technology it needs. It is also about whether its democratic institutions can keep meaningful control over it.