The NHS has caused controversy by handing the US spy technology company Palantir a £330m contract to create a new data platform, triggering fears about the privacy of patients’ medical details.

The move immediately prompted concerns about the security and privacy of patient medical records and the suitability of Palantir to be given access to and oversight of such sensitive material.

NHS England has given Palantir and its partner Accenture a five-year contract to set up and operate the “federated data platform” (FDP).

Palantir is known for working closely with intelligence agencies and military organisations around the world, such as the CIA and the Ministry of Defence.

Thiel, a libertarian, told an Oxford Union debate in January that the NHS makes people sick and should be privatised, and that Britons’ attachment to it showed they were exhibiting “Stockholm syndrome”.

But he also warned that the NHS’s unhappy previous history of trying to bring its huge stores of data together could mean it struggles to convince the public of the project’s potential benefits.

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