NDIS Participant Data Shared with Palantir via Fraud Fusion Taskforce

A multi-agency Fraud Fusion Taskforce, established in 2022 and led by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) and Services Australia, has been using Palantir Technologies’ analytics platform to process large volumes of information from participating government bodies. Documents obtained through freedom-of-information requests show that data from the NDIA’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants is being fed to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), which then ingests the dataset into Palantir’s software for bulk analytics and data-matching. The ACIC has paid “millions in contracts” to Palantir in recent years for tools that map connections between people and identify behavioural patterns linked to serious and organised crime.

The Guardian

The taskforce’s design requires each contributing agency to set use, handling and disclosure restrictions before data are transferred to the ACIC.

The Guardian

• An ACIC spokesperson affirmed that taskforce-related data are handled and that “the contributing agency is responsible for articulating any use, handling, and disclosure restrictions to the ACIC.”

The Guardian

• Advocacy groups have called for a ban on Palantir software by the Australian government since May, citing the company’s controversial manifesto and its co-founder Peter Thiel’s political ties.

The Guardian

• “The contributing agency is responsible for articulating any use, handling, and disclosure restrictions to the ACIC.” — Tom Sulston, the head of policy at Digital Rights Watch (Tom Sulston, head of policy at Digital Rights Watch)

The Guardian