World Food Programme to renew Palantir contract despite leaked audit warning of privacy failures

The World Food Programme is finalising a renewal of its contract with Palantir, the US data-analytics company founded with backing from American intelligence agencies, even though a leaked internal audit has warned of "inadequate risk management" and a lack of proper data-privacy guidelines in the partnership. The audit, completed in August 2025 by the WFP's Office of the Inspector General, grades the problem as "high priority" and notes that key privacy concerns raised since the partnership began in 2019 "have not been adequately addressed."

The renewal, expected to be signed this month, extends a pro bono agreement originally worth $45mn that gave Palantir's Digital Operations and Transformation System (DOTS) deep access to the WFP's supply-chain logistics. The agency manages SCOPE, one of the world's largest biometric databases, containing personal information on millions of aid recipients in conflict zones and disaster areas. Although the WFP says DOTS does not connect directly to SCOPE, staff and external researchers have long warned that the contract's licensing language could allow Palantir to use operational data for "performance improvement", a clause that privacy advocates say could enable algorithmic training on humanitarian data.

Audit details systemic gaps

The leaked document states that the WFP "lacks a unified and trusted system" for managing its data and that "reputational considerations surrounding the partnership have led to institutional uncertainty." It also flags the absence of a clearly defined exit strategy: "At present, there is no clearly defined exit strategy for DOTS, nor clarity on the potential costs that may arise should the partnership be terminated." The WFP's technology division has assessed options for exporting data but has not presented a plan to key stakeholders, even as "substantial investments" into DOTS continue.

This is not the first warning. A 2020 legal-office audit also raised concerns, but the team that conducted it was disbanded in June 2025, with oversight transferred to an internal audit group reporting directly to the agency's acting director, Carl Skau. According to UN insiders, Skau acknowledged the relationship was problematic when presented with a staff petition in January but said disentangling would be costly and that Palantir had improved efficiency and saved money.

Military ties fuel unease

Palantir's software is embedded across the US military and intelligence apparatus. Its chief executive, Alex Karp, has stated the product is "used on occasion to kill people," and the company's co-founder, Peter Thiel, has declared he no longer believes "freedom and democracy are compatible." A April manifesto posted by the company extolling US power and AI-driven geopolitical competition prompted a round of applause at a WFP departmental meeting when one employee asked: "Why are we still partnering with Palantir?"

"Humanitarian agencies are de facto stewards of both the personally and demographically identifiable information about the prime targets of multiple global militaries and intelligence services,"

Said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health. "In the wrong hands, such information could be deadly."

A new report by the "Tech for Bad" initiative, authored by researchers Tina Indrani Mason and Rose Worden, describes the partnership as "a clear conflict of interest and a grave abdication of ethical responsibility," warning that embedding a US military contractor in the world's largest humanitarian supply chain compromises the WFP when "hunger is increasingly exploited as a weapon of war."

Funding pressure and political headwinds

The renewal coincides with the Trump administration's push to install Luke J. Lindberg, a senior US Department of Agriculture official, as the next WFP chief. The USDA signed a $300mn deal with Palantir in April. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has reportedly "slow walked" Lindberg's approval, and senior WFP staff believe ending the Palantir partnership could trigger further US funding cuts. The agency plans to cut nearly a third of its global workforce this year.

While the WFP insists it "processes and controls all its own data" and is not locked into any single provider, internal assessments suggest building a comparable system in-house would cost roughly $20mn, potentially cheaper long-term than the current arrangement, which already requires payments for cloud infrastructure and support totalling more than $10.5mn since 2017. One staffer with extensive knowledge of the platform called it "mediocre"; another described it as "the best tool in the sector" and warned removal would "collapse" supply-chain operations.

Global pushback grows

Resistance to Palantir is spreading. France's DGSI and Germany's domestic security service have both ended partnerships over data-sovereignty concerns. The UK's NHS has been put on notice to prepare for a break, and New York City's public hospital system severed ties after pressure from the grassroots campaign Purge Palantir. Clara Chappaz, France's ambassador for digital affairs and AI, said the DGSI's decision was driven partly by "concerns about data sovereignty and digital resilience."

For now, the WFP appears set to renew. A spokesperson confirmed the "general scope and terms" of the 2019 contract will remain unchanged. But with the audit's findings now public, internal dissent rising, and international scrutiny intensifying, the agency's leadership may find the "hot potato" harder to ignore when the next contract cycle arrives.