I would be interested in what value it has delivered, and show that it is an investment - not just payment for charts.

It feels like "Something must be done about ..." "This is something" - Job done, tick the box move to the next job.

So great. Pick a suitable FOSS distro of Linux and standardize on it. And hire the proper inhouse staff to set it up and maintain it.

Lol they don't mean an actual operating system like Linux, they mean a federated data lake cloud platform or some such shite.

Well it's Palantir and Thiel so we get a very large helping of evil with a side order of digital serfdom.

A Mosley stumping for more fascist influence in the UK? Stop me if you've heard this one before.

The UK should already be reverse-peddling on any contracts it already has with Palantir, to do anything less is incompetence.

to do anything less is aiding and abetting evil.

FTFY

My view of Palantir couldn't get much lower, but in some respect he's got a point which may well be lost in the criticism of... well, everything to do with Palantir.

If the enquiry is about learning lessons, rather than just identifying scapegoats, then is there a lesson to be learned from the lack of 'joined up thinking' within government? I was tangentially close to the technological response to the pandemic (MedTech offering potential solutions), and it was pretty clear that health and civil organisation in the UK is a fractured patchwork of systems and information that cannot be meaningfully queried, combined or tested.

There will be another pandemic. What do we have in place to identify, track and respond to it?

Yes, he's right about a common environment, but we absolutely should not be letting another major US company get further tied in with critical infrastructure, least of all one of Thiel's

Completely agree.

The correct response from the committee should be "Thank you for your nice idea, Mr Thiel. Now go away and we'll do it ourselves."

I can confidently guarantee that is precisely not the response that has been given.

Any chance for mo'money from the government do less work is always welcome for both companies! And an utter certainty it'll end in a shitshow that'll make Fujitsu's mess with the Post Office look like Cinderella!

Even if the company and it's freaky founders/management didn't scare you off, why would you pay any attention to them about anything?

They're still a fairly small business with middling products and the contracts they won are relatively tiny stuff. The only truly big thing about them is their notoriety and their massively(!!) overinflated stock price.

If any of these wonderful new ideas really did take off then more likely than not it'd be a much bigger & more ruthless fish that'll actually take them forward.

Sounds like he's saying, "We want to sell you a bunch of identical (data) warehouses, where you can't change the locks, and we're keeping a copy of the keys."

With everyone running P.O.S. ("Peter's Operating System"), all data would be vulnerable to a (computer) pandemic (operating system/database system vulnerability), and to Palantir's selling TLAs copies of those keys.

Data - our data - and its processing and use is such a big part of what the government does that it shouldn't be farmed out to anyone. What it needs is a professionally-staffed civil service IT organization, paid at market rates, to plan, develop, roll out, maintain and support the IT that we the country and people need. The bollocks about civil service rank and pay scales is just that because it's avoided for every discipline in every department by hiring consultants either as individuals or companies. Each wave of new consultancy brings a new, different view based on fashion or our-latest-product and we end up with silos of obsolete-before-first-use, disjointed, dilettante-led IT services which costs shit-loads of money and simply doesn't deliver anyhing.

A common "OS" for government data may well be a good idea. Palantir certainly wouldn't be.

I can assure you that anything that centralises Procurement into a one-size-fits-all Blob/Procurement IT system will do exactly the opposite of optimisation.

Currently going through end of financial year contract renewals for critical IT Infrastructure licencing and I can tell you this is why Daddy drinks.

I got politique earlier but honestly, it's such a bag of shit of a move I can't imagine who benefits outside of the contractor. The users and support personnel surely do NOT.

Yeah, why not get all of the world's governments to adopt a "common operating system" for all the data about everyone in the world.

That would make it so much easier for the Orange King! (apologies to the Dutch)

Hang on, we already have it, M$

So UK and EU both come up with the same idea and as usual both look at different directions, when it would be I don't common sense (yes I know we are talking politicians and unelected unaccountable bureaucrats) to work together and speed up development, cut costs and inter agency connectivity ?

It is a rare article that leads to such a unified consensus:

Never deal with Peter Thiel.

The man is a bad choice for so many reasons. Here is just one as an illustration:

Peter Thiel gave us JD Vance as VP of the USA.

JD Vance is a Manchurian VP who might make us fear an untimely departure of the current Know Nothing in chief. Peter Thiel is his puppet master.

And here's another:

Peter Thiel is a vile arsehole.

He also gave us His Muskiness. And Facebook. That's another two crimes against humanity.

Ah yes, Elogated Muskrat's mentor and confidant.

Give Palantir any data and it will end up in the USA and in the hands of all those Billionaires who were at Trump's non inauguraton.

DO NOT TRUST THEM EVEN WITH A 3,000 mile long BARGE POLE.

There would be massive benefits to switching the entire governmental IT network to HaikuOS - for a start, it'll prevent Oracle botching any more contracts.