Met gets extension to Palantir AI project after Sadiq Khan blocked deal
TL;DR
London’s mayoral office has allowed the Metropolitan Police to keep using its Palantir pilot for another 12 months while it runs a procurement process for a long-term supplier. The extension comes weeks after Sadiq Khan blocked a proposed £50m Palantir deal, citing a clear and serious breach of procurement rules and weak supplier competition. The pilot combines internal Met data on about 45,000 people to flag potential misconduct, welfare, culture and risk patterns across officers and staff.
Nauti's Take
This is not just a boring procurement extension. Once a police force relies on a system that joins data across 45,000 internal people and surfaces risk patterns, the pilot is already part of the power structure.
The standards-reform argument is plausible, but incomplete. The real test is whether London can enforce transparency, auditability and genuine vendor neutrality before Palantir becomes the default by inertia.
Briefingshow
This is a clean example of how public-sector AI pilots become operational dependencies before the politics catches up. Even with a new procurement process, Palantir gets another year of runtime, institutional familiarity and proof points inside the Met. The temporary bridge may shape the supposedly open competition that follows.
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