Palantir (PLTR) is reportedly helping the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) analyze dozens of data sets on American citizens to investigate a vast range of financial crimes.
The IRS’ Criminal Investigation Division has used the military contractor’s Lead and Case Analytics platform since 2018 to analyze and aggregate diverse lists of federal databases and data sets, The Intercept reported.
American Oversight, a non-profit watchdog group, obtained public records detailing Palantir’s IRS contract and shared them with the Intercept. The public records revealed the vast amount of data plugged into Palantir’s software.
According to the article, the documents revealed that Palantir’s Lead and Case Analytics platform allows the IRS to search and visualize connections from millions of records with thousands of links between databases maintained by other federal agencies and the IRS. The data includes Affordable Care Act data, individual tax forms and tax returns, bank statements and transactions, and other available data compiled by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Treasury Department.
The documents suggest that its reach extends to cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Ripple.
According to the contract documents, the IRS has paid over $130M to the military contractor for its services to date.
Palantir and the IRS did not immediately respond to a Seeking Alpha request for comment.
American Oversight director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement to The Intercept that the real concern is the consolidation of vast amounts of sensitive personal data into a single system with minimal transparency, especially one built and operated by a contractor like Palantir, whose business model is premised on integrating data and expanding surveillance capabilities.
“When the government can map relationships, track behavior, and generate investigative leads across data sets at this scale, the question isn’t just what it can do—it's who it will be used against,” Chukwu said to The Intercept. “Entrusting that infrastructure to a company known for opaque, security-state deployments only heightens those risks.”
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