Exclusive: WFP to extend Palantir contract despite concerns raised in leaked audit

The World Food Programme (WFP) manages one of the biggest biometric databases in the world. Its SCOPE system contains information on millions of people, many of them beneficiaries of global humanitarian aid. To help the WFP track humanitarian aid and manage its supply-chain data, Palantir developed the Digital Operations and Transformation System (DOTS). Founded in 2003, Palantir – named after the all-seeing eye in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings – was partly seeded with money from the US intelligence community. It has since developed AI-powered data-integration software that can collate, process and analyze massive amounts of data on governments, organizations or individuals – software that is now deeply embedded in the US military and surveillance complex. Within the UN itself, there is a split between those who resist Palantir’s growing involvement in its agencies – who want to ensure that any adoption of related AI-powered programs is responsable and ethical – and the move-fast-and-break-things crowd trumpeting “efficiency”. A cyberattack on the Rome-based WFP in May exposed sensitive data on thousands of aid beneficiaries in Gaza, underscoring concerns about data protection...