Hi, welcome to Navarra FM. My name is Eleanor Penny. What do the Israeli Occupation forces, the UK National Health Service and the US

military have in common? Well, they all procure the services of Palantir Technologies, a multi-billion

dollar software company specialising in big data analysis, surveillance technology, and more recently in artificial intelligence.

They are not shy about stating their mission as one of military might, technological dominance and

security for their partner states. On a recent earnings call, the CEO Alex Karp said,

Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world,

and when it's necessary to scare enemies and on occasion kill them.

So it's maybe more than a little chilling that big tech companies like this hold an increasing

amount of data on our everyday lives and an increasing amount of power in the way institutions,

online platforms, public life and politics are run. They promised a weightless economy,

digital prosperity and a future freed from the many

flaws and inefficiencies of human cognition. In reality, their tools are being used

for invasive policing tactics, crackdowns at protests and borders, enforcing apartheid and

ethnic cleansing. Nowhere is this more starkly evident right now than in Gaza, where big tech companies are enabling

an AI-powered genocide. So, how do these tools actually operate? Why are states turning to big

data governance and what can it tell us about racial capitalism?

How are the everyday lives of people across the globe

wrapped up with the companies helping figure out the most efficient ways

to murder Palestinians and deport migrants?

To find out more, I talked to Dr. Matt Mahmoudi.

Matt is an assistant professor in digital humanities at the University of Cambridge and a research associate with their Centre of Governance and Human Rights.

He's a co-editor of the book Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence and the author of Migrants in the Digital Peripher, New Urban Frontiers of Control.

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