alt.hn

7/1/2026 at 3:23:05 PM

Spanish government 'quietly bans use of Palantir' in critical state systems

 https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/spanish-bans-palantir-national-security-5HjdcNp_2/

by donpott

7/2/2026 at 4:37:00 PM

Palantir should be completely banned from any EU government contracts. We cannot keep handing over our most core systems and data to non-EU entities, especially given the US’s adversarial stance towards EU.

by Tehnix

7/2/2026 at 5:01:06 PM

Do you know why EU has a history of outsourcing core systems to non-EU entities?

Is it just because it is (or was) more cost effective? I mean EU has tons of talent, so it's hard for me to believe it's a lack of resources

Maybe it is too costly or too difficult to start up in the EU?

I haven't done too much research myself. I don't know the stories of anyone who tried to compete against palantir/google/boeing/etc

by fusslo

7/2/2026 at 5:21:55 PM

It is quite puzzling to me though as to why.

We have plenty of talent here to build stuff ourselves, and frequently do.

If I’m honest I’d guess lobbying and/or trade deals where we often agree to buy smth from the US.

A recent one is NHS (UK healthcare system) and Palantir, which makes no sense to hand over core medical data to an outsider. That seemed a clear lobbying case.

by Tehnix

7/2/2026 at 5:58:47 PM

If this is true, who is the EU-equivalent of Palantir?

by solumos

7/2/2026 at 4:41:50 PM

Ideally European countries would ban all US tech companies and actually invest in home grown solutions. Already some good pro open source policies. Just take it a step further and take a stance on digital sovereignty

by 8by3

7/2/2026 at 5:10:18 PM

We should ease tensions and bring back globalism, capitalism efficiency, and drop those lame nationalistic and protectionist policies.

We have nothing to gain, anywhere on the planet, from more and more closure.

It's so sad that we're still stuck globally with so many dictatures and non-representative quasi democracies like presidential and semi presidential republics, all waiting for the right strong man to push it.

America's founders fucked up with their presidential approach of making a single, hard to remove person, hold executive power.

Say what you want, but it hasn't been since Sri Lanka 50 years ago that a parliamentary republic turned authoritarian. Every single others have been presidential and semi presidential ones.

Electing kings seems worse than having ereditary ones, they can even claim popular mandate...

by epolanski

7/2/2026 at 5:24:35 PM

I’m 100% for globalism, but you cannot outsource your sovereignty. The US has proven time and time again that it is fine with using its embedding into nations as a bargaining chip, and has proven highly unreliable.

by Tehnix

7/1/2026 at 7:04:36 PM

Meanwhile the Dutch news just has a headline that NATO fully embraced Palantir’s Maven Smart System, so I wonder how true this ban is.

by clydethefrog

7/1/2026 at 7:48:23 PM

Why would dutch doing something make you cast doubt about Spain announcement?

by watwut

7/2/2026 at 4:25:55 AM

The two nations have a bit of history.

by ElevenLathe

7/2/2026 at 4:40:15 PM

Assume because Spain is part of Nato. Though the two aren't mutually exclusive, the Goverment is banning it from parts, not necessarily everywhere.

by 8by3

7/2/2026 at 5:03:07 PM

I was more alluding to potential for a Neo 80 Years' War (or else a Neo War of Spanish Succession).

by ElevenLathe

7/2/2026 at 5:43:31 PM

sounds like they need some freedom bombs - in accordance with the international rules of law of course

by heyitsmedotjayb

7/2/2026 at 4:59:16 PM

Ole, que viva España

by codeadict

7/1/2026 at 4:05:36 PM

Smart.

by watwut

7/2/2026 at 4:46:47 PM

Totally appropriate. Their C-suite seem like psychopaths.

by josefritzishere

7/1/2026 at 6:28:37 PM

I fucking wish the UK government would do the same.

by spacedcowboy

7/1/2026 at 6:40:02 PM

Same for Germany and other EU members

by dgellow

7/1/2026 at 11:38:11 PM

By that, they mean they don't want Palantir to see what is going on in those systems. Palantir has an unmodifiable blockchain to track all additions, changes and modifications, and deletions and by whom. No way to cheat. In many ways, Palantir is so much safer than any other system. But my guess is there are things they don't want the Trump DSI/NSA/CIA/Military Intelligence to see.

by freddealmeida

7/2/2026 at 4:36:17 PM

> unmodifiable blockchain

Ahhh, this old trope. Fork it - trivial to do when you have consensus.

by officialchicken

7/2/2026 at 5:22:21 PM

I don't even understand what an "unmodifiable blockchain" held by a single private entity could mean.

They

- have the data of yesterday

- have backups of the data of yesterday

- are going to write today's data on top of it to continue the chain

(insert magic here)

- somehow we are super sure, tomorrow, that today's data has not been tampered with

If somebody can shine some light on the magic part, I'm interested

by sebastiennight

7/2/2026 at 7:01:57 PM

The point isn't that you can't add bad data: obviously you can.

The point is that if the hashes of the blocks are published, you can't later go back and tamper with that data.

by onraglanroad

7/2/2026 at 4:54:47 PM

> But my guess is there are things they don't want the Trump DSI/NSA/CIA/Military Intelligence to see.

You don't have to guess, that's exactly what the headline says: "...over fears of national security leaks". And several times in the body of the article.

by tecleandor

7/2/2026 at 7:01:34 PM

Correct. Why should any country want its sensitive government data to be visible to other countries, and to Trumps government at that?

Why doesn't the Trump admin open up it's data to inspection by European, Chinese, Russian etc auditors? What does it have to fear?

by hardbass