How tenaciously Palantir courted Switzerland

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These are scenes one recognizes from dictatorships: masked agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency hunt down migrants in the U.S. Moving like paramilitary units, they storm neighborhoods in armored vehicles, arrest people, and deport them without trial.

But how do ICE agents know exactly where their targets are? To find them, the agency relies on surveillance technologies, including products from the U.S. data analytics company Palantir Technologies. Co-founded by right‑wing libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel, Palantir has become one of the most controversial tech firms in the world.

Palantir’s software draws on telephone and flight data as well as social media profiles to map the movement patterns of migrants. This enables the immigration authorities not only to identify them, but also to locate them in real time. One of the strengths of the system is that instead of having to sift through many separate databases and confusing file formats, users are provided with a uniform interface in which connections are automatically visualized – for example, via timelines, networks, or graphic evaluations.

The tech firm’s clients include security agencies, military forces, and intelligence services worldwide. The company’s products are used in Israel, Ukraine, Lithuania, Spain, and three German federal states, among other locations.

Until recently, it was unclear whether Swiss government agencies or the Swiss Army were among Palantir’s customers.

Republik and the WAV research collective set out to find out. They contacted authorities in Bern and in Zurich, where Palantir’s Swiss office is based. Under the Freedom of Information Act, the team filed 59 document access requests with Swiss federal authorities. The material obtained reveals the following:

1. Over a period of seven years, Palantir conducted a major sales campaign aimed at securing Swiss federal authorities as clients. During this time, Palantir was turned down outright at least nine times – either because its software was deemed unnecessary or because agencies feared reputational damage.

2. Palantir made headway only with the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection, and Sport (DDPS): The Federal Office for Defence Procurement (Armasuisse), part of the DDPS, considered purchasing Palantir software for its “Military Intelligence Service IT System.” Even in this case, however, no collaboration ultimately materialized.

3. The Swiss Army, which is also part of the DDPS, remained interested in acquiring Palantir software as recently as 2024. But an internal report shows that concerns over confidential Swiss military data being passed on to U.S. intelligence agencies – the CIA and the NSA – ultimately led the army to abandon the project.

It all began in San Francisco

Few tech companies worldwide are as deeply embroiled in controversy as Palantir. It’s not just the brutal hunting of migrants by ICE agents that keeps the company in the headlines.

It’s also because Palantir’s co-founders, right-wing libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel and current CEO Alex Karp, make no secret of the fact that the software is meant to be used as a deadly weapon. Karp doesn’t shy away from hawkish rhetoric either. In a call with investors, he said: “Palantir is here to disrupt. (...) and, when it’s necessary, to scare our enemies and occasionally kill them.” In another investor meeting, he quoted a political scientist as saying: “The rise of the West has not been made possible by the superiority of its ideas, values, or religion, but rather by its superiority in the use of organized violence.”

Peter Thiel, one of the first prominent Trump supporters from Silicon Valley, is known for declaring that freedom and democracy are incompatible.

The company is named after the “seeing stones” (palantíri) from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: magical crystal balls that let their owners observe distant places and receive messages. Palantir makes the same promise: to enable the remote monitoring of large amounts of data in order to reveal patterns and links that would otherwise remain hidden.

Palantir’s software supplies militaries with intelligence that can shape decisions to use lethal force. It serves as a surveillance tool for the police and is employed by large corporations for process optimization and data-driven decision-making. Critics accuse the company of taking mass surveillance and automated warfare to a new level with its software – facilitated by a lack of regulation and a disregard for human rights. Palantir itself openly acknowledges that its tools are meant to “optimize the kill chain” in modern warfare (see info box).

It is now becoming clear that Palantir has also been active in Switzerland. Since 2018, the U.S. company repeatedly attempted to win over federal authorities as clients – through direct outreach, but also at international conferences, such as the World Economic Forum in Davos and events in San Francisco.

An initial meeting between Palantir executives and high-ranking representatives of Switzerland took place on April 23, 2018, at 8 a.m. in an office building not far from Stanford University in Silicon Valley, where Palantir has its headquarters.

Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer of the Swiss People’s Party, then minister of finance, headed a Swiss delegation in a meeting with Shyam Sankar, then chief operating officer, now chief technology officer of Palantir. The Swiss delegation’s memo simply notes: “Presentation of Palantir products.”

The meeting took place after the International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meeting and was organized by Switzerland Global Enterprise, the Swiss foreign trade promotion agency. Maurer had visited “several fintech companies” in San Francisco, according to a statement by the State Secretariat for International Finance in response to a question from Republik about the meeting with Palantir. Visits to Tesla and eBay were also part of the day’s program.

Officially, the meeting was about regulatory issues. Maurer’s delegation wanted to know whether the discussions surrounding the Facebook data scandal in 2018 could also have consequences for Palantir. The following question appears in the memo: “Do you believe that the current discussions about Facebook could lead to regulations that could also affect your company?” The answer to this question is not known; the Department of Finance refused to release the minutes of this meeting.

Two years later, in January 2020, another exchange took place at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in the U.S. company’s pavilion. There, then-Federal Chancellor Walter Thurnherr met with Palantir CEO Alex Karp and Palantir Vice President and Laura Rudas, who later became a board member of the Swiss media company Ringier. The Swiss Federal Chancellery confirmed to Republik and WAV that the meeting took place. The pavilion features curved wooden walls that divide the space into different areas – perfect for confidential conversations.

The interior architects behind the pavilion wrote on their website: “Palantir’s pavilion at the World Economic Forum is critically important, because, due to negative media coverage, the company relies on direct customer contact to build a good reputation and protect the privacy of its customers.”

These confidential conversations help the tech company establish valuable contacts in Swiss business and government circles.

Shortly thereafter, Covid-19 spread to Europe. Palantir spotted an opportunity to provide the Swiss federal government with tools to combat the pandemic, and initially encountered a receptive audience. This marked the start of a sales campaign that would last for years.

On March 15, 2020 – one day before the Federal Council declared a state of emergency due to the pandemic – Palantir wrote to Federal Chancellor Walter Thurnherr, who was responsible for digital transformation in the Swiss federal government: “In light of the extreme challenges posed by the Covid-19 crisis, we would like to offer you our support.”

In the email, Palantir touts its data analysis product “Foundry” as a tool for combating the pandemic. Three days later, the company followed up with another email, which stated that the company was aware of the strain on decision-makers in the current situation, and: “At the same time, [I] would like to reiterate that we are absolutely ready to help pro bono at short notice. We are already doing this in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, but we feel a special obligation to Switzerland and the Federal Chancellor.”

The email had an impact. In May 2020, a meeting took place in Bern, where Thurnherr received Palantir Vice President Laura Rudas. The two discussed the pandemic and the “possibilities of digitalization in combating the pandemic.” This is confirmed by the Federal Chancellery in response to a request by Republik.

Palantir offered to assist Swiss authorities with contact tracing using its data analysis tools. The aim was to track down people who had been in contact with infected individuals in Switzerland. However, Thurnherr referred Rudas to the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), saying that he was not responsible for this issue.

Collaboration with Palantir considered too sensitive

And so Palantir’s sales staff contacted the Swiss public health authorities, which had become the single most important federal office during those years of crisis. A friendly email exchange ensued between Sang-Il Kim, then the head of digital transformation at the FOPH, and Palantir’s representative. They were on a first‑name basis.

Nine months later, Palantir submitted a bid for the “monitoring of the Covid-19 vaccination strategy.”

However, the FOPH chose another company. One of the reasons was that the FOPH media department considered that cooperation with Palantir was too sensitive, as internal meeting minutes reveal: “Problem: The communications department requests that Palantir’s involvement should be put into question.”

The exact reason for this was redacted, like many other passages in the documents. The Federal Office’s head of digital transformation official, Sang-Il Kim, apologized to Palantir by email: “Sorry that you were ‘dropped’ at such short notice without really having gotten involved.”

The pandemic acted as a catalyst for digitalization in most countries and also for most companies. Palantir did not want to miss this opportunity and tried to gain a foothold elsewhere.

In June 2020, Palantir wrote to the director of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) asking for a meeting. However, the FSO director never responded to the request, as revealed by internal checks carried out after requests by Republik and WAV revealed. In retrospect, the FSO was unable to determine what the reason was; it may have been a capacity issue.

Palantir also knocked on the door of the federal government’s most important digital office, the Federal Office of Information Technology, Systems and Telecommunications (FOITT). For the company, a collaboration with this entity would be extremely lucrative and serve as a crucial door opener, as it is the IT service provider for all federal offices.

The FOITT confirms that three meetings with Palantir representatives took place during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. However, no business relationship was established. Why not? There was no need, the FOITT stated when asked.

Palantir made yet another attempt with the Swiss government in October 2022. The State Secretariat for International Finance organized a workshop with the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS), at which Palantir was allowed to present its anti-money laundering software. But the Americans’ data analysis software was ultimately deemed too sensitive for the MROS. The reason given was that its use would likely be unlawful: there is no legal basis for using the Palantir software and the corresponding exchange of data with financial intermediaries.

The workshop marked the low point of Palantir’s failing marketing campaign in Switzerland.

For several years, the U.S. company repeatedly tried to sell its data analysis software to agencies of the Swiss federal administration – and was turned down everywhere.

One reason for this was the increasing number of negative headlines about Palantir during this period. Mistrust stemming from the company’s origins – Palantir was partly founded with start-up capital from the CIA – and its proximity to libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel apparently deterred Swiss authorities from launching pilot projects with the firm.

The investigation by Republik also found that every police force in Switzerland, when asked, denied using Palantir’s software.

However, Palantir’s sales tour also failed for other reasons. This becomes clear from the company’s attempts to court the Swiss military.

Fear that data could reach U.S. intelligence agencies

From 2018 onwards, there were several meetings between Palantir and the Swiss Army, according to two insiders. However, nothing concrete came out of these talks. Then, in 2020, the Federal Office for Defence Procurement (Armasuisse) asked Palantir to submit a bid for the “IT system of the Army Intelligence Service.”

Palantir did so – and was rejected once again.

When asked for the reason, Armasuisse explained to Republik that the tech company’s bid did not meet a mandatory requirement of the tender. To this day, it remains unclear what that criterion was. The Federal Office for Defence refused to provide any further information.

In June 2024, Palantir made yet another attempt to promote its products to the Swiss army, this time directly to Army Chief Thomas Süssli. At the Shangri-La Dialogue, one of Asia’s most important security conferences, Palantir’s European head Louis Mosley approached the head of the Swiss Army. According to an internal report, he spoke to Thomas Süssli and his staff about the Swiss Army’s interest in solutions “to apply algorithms or AI to data.”

Mosley suggested a live demonstration of the products and highlighted in particular an application for “measuring the availability of military units,” intended for use in the context of Gesamtverteidigung (“total defense”).

After that, the Swiss army commissioned an internal report to assess whether the military could use Palantir tools or not. At the beginning of December 2024, the report was presented to Thomas Süssli.

The report, which was made available to Republik, praises the performance of the Palantir software, describing it as “impressive.” However, the points of criticism far outweigh the praise. They reflect the current debates among privacy advocates and digital rights activists in Germany.

The authors of the report state that using Palantir’s software would increase dependence on a U.S. provider. It also poses the risk of losing data sovereignty and thereby national sovereignty.

Above all, however, the army’s staff experts say it remains unclear who has access to data shared with Palantir. The following sentence from the Swiss Army report is particularly relevant: “Palantir is a U.S.-based company, which means there is a possibility that sensitive data could be accessed by the US government and intelligence services.” Faced with questions from Republik, the DDPS said that this wording reflected a “precautionary risk assessment.”

Nevertheless, the finding is explosive. First, because it comes from a high‑level army panel, and second, because the DDPS employs seasoned cryptologists. As a result, the report directly contradicts Palantir’s official assurances that any data leakage is technically impossible.

However, the Swiss Army was also concerned that the comprehensive collection and analysis of data could intrude on the privacy of those affected. It found that it could not be ruled out “that certain individuals may be targeted unintentionally on the basis of statistical correlations.”

Privacy advocates and digital activists in Germany share this concern. They fear that vast amounts of data from uninvolved parties could end up in the tech company’s systems.

The conclusion of the experts in the 20-page report is clear: the Swiss Army should consider alternatives – and forego using Palantir’s solutions.

If you ask around in the Swiss Army, Palantir seems to have been written off.

One insider says: “The political damage would be many times greater than the actual benefit. And there are better tools for assessing the situation in the Swiss Army.”

An unfamiliar experience for the tech giant

Italian digital pioneer Francesca Bria – an important voice in the European technology debate – warns of Palantir’s silent infiltration into European governments and secret services. More and more European countries are, she argues, willing to outsource sovereign tasks to a controversial security company – without any parliamentary debate. Palantir, Microsoft, and Amazon are using this momentum to build an infrastructure of control and surveillance in Europe.

Swiss authorities have so far managed to resist this temptation.

Despite years of aggressive sales campaigns, informal contacts, and numerous discussions, Palantir has been repeatedly rebuffed by the Swiss government. For the IT giant – used to success and already firmly embedded in the public sector in many European countries – this is an unusual experience.