Imagine my neighbor telling me “Our country should not become an amalgam of global values”. Puh, deep breath. And he continues: “I do not tolerate everything and all and I do not take all perspectives as equally valid. That only devolves into a belief in nothing.” His crossbreed dog barks over the fence as if it would say “Yes, YES, YESS!!!” Good dog. Good neighbor. Right? More or less. Certainly not left. Left or right? Right or wrong? Who knows. Certainly not well balanced, indeed.
Would you elect this neighbor as lay judge or deputy sheriff at your village? The question is not as absurd as it seems, because many police forces in the world do right now exactly this. Well because, that neighbor has a well-known name. May I introduce to you: Alexander C. Karp. And he did not tell me this in a private chat over the fence (we do not even live next to each other, because there is a big, big beautiful ocean between us). But I received his message well – as he has written that quite similar on his website. The article has a headline called “Letter to Shareholders”. The website’s address is www.palantir.com.
Palantir has once been a crystal ball in a very famous epic-fantasy novel called “Lord of the Rings” (by J.R.R. Tollkien). Today it is a real company that has a real CEO: Karp. And if that background would not be untrustworthy enough, this company has named its most famous product after a comic series: Gotham. This Gotham is a fantasy city where within the superhero Batman does his manhunt. And as all this is not only a crazy software that has been developed by a tired-out programmer after several energy drinks but has a very, (really very, very) serious impact on how we in Europe are shaping our investigative police – we should have a deeper dive into the matter.
Who Wants to Purchase the Software in Europe and Germany, and Where Is It Actually Used?
Across Europe, especially in Germany, law enforcement agencies and security organizations are eager adopters of Palantir Gotham. The software has been in operation in Germany since at least 2017, where police in Hesse use it as “hessenDATA” to combat terrorism and broader crime—and its use has expanded to everyday policing, including fighting theft and street crime. Other states like Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Baden-Württemberg are also rolling it out. Europol leverages Gotham for anti-terror analytics, and similar deployments exist in Norway, Denmark, and by numerous pilot projects in ministries for health and defense. Demand is driven by federal and state police authorities, defense, and security ministries aiming for advanced analytics and actionable intelligence through powerful data integration.
How Does Gotham Work?
Palantir Gotham serves as an advanced analytics platform, integrating massive volumes of disparate data—such as phone records, financial transactions, social media activity, and case files—into a secure, single system. Using (unknown to the user) artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, and graph analysis, it helps investigators link suspects, reconstruct events, and visualize networks in seconds. The platform is accessible even for non-technical users and automates much of the search for hidden connections, presenting investigators with comprehensive profiles and actionable insights via easy-to-use interfaces. All access and changes are strictly logged, and data access is governed by granular control settings according to user roles and legal permissions. Gotham is thus used to streamline investigations, improve situational awareness, and accelerate mission-critical decision-making—for defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and crisis management.
What Do Critics Say About the Software?
Criticism of Gotham is fierce and comes primarily from privacy advocates, civil liberties organizations, and legal experts. Detractors worry about “predictive policing”, mass surveillance, and the risk that innocent individuals could be swept into algorithm-driven investigations or exposed in extensive data mining operations. There are also concerns about the concentration of sensitive security data in the systems of a US-based firm, potential lack of local oversight, and the risk of mission creep—where the software, initially intended for counterterrorism, is deployed for everyday crime policing. Organizations like the Society for Civil Rights in Germany have even challenged the software’s deployment in court, arguing that it threatens personal privacy and constitutional freedoms.
Is the Criticism Right or Wrong, and Why?
Many of these criticisms are partly justified: Gotham’s ability to quickly analyze vast troves of integrated personal and behavioral data poses genuine risks for privacy invasion and potential abuse of power. When deployed improperly or without strict legal frameworks, such technologies can increase surveillance overreach and threaten civil rights—especially if checks and balances, transparency, and democratic oversight are lacking. However, Gotham also includes robust access controls, full audit logging, and configurable data protection measures that, if strictly enforced, can help ensure legal compliance and ethical use. Ultimately, the real issue is not the software itself, but the regulatory, organizational, and cultural safeguards: Gotham can enhance security and investigative efficiency, but only if applied within clearly defined, democratically legitimated, and transparent boundaries, balancing security needs with fundamental rights.
How become Gotham Alarms a Court-Proof Claim?
One of the most critical concerns surrounding Palantir Gotham is how its outputs—alerts or alarms flagged by the system regarding potential criminal or terrorist behavior—can be legally substantiated in court. Due to the proprietary nature and secrecy around Palantir’s algorithms, the direct use of Gotham’s analysis as evidence is extremely limited and courts remain cautious. In practice, prosecutors and police departments usually do not even cite Gotham software directly in legal documents or trials to avoid transparency issues and challenges related to algorithmic decision-making.
Instead, Gotham is primarily a tool for generating investigative leads, patterns, and hypotheses rather than conclusive proof. Law enforcement uses insights from Gotham to guide traditional investigative methods—such as collecting physical evidence, witness statements, or surveillance—and only this independently verified evidence is presented in court. Courts have exhibited skepticism towards relying solely on outputs from complex data analysis platforms without clear insight into how conclusions were reached. Therefore, Gotham’s role is to augment investigations, but the foundation for claims in court must come from legally admissible and validated evidence beyond the software’s outputs.
Should Palantir/Gotham be a trusted advisor in investigations about criminals and terrorists?
Why not, when the results are good. But it makes me thinking when a man garnishes his openly admitted biased attitude with fantasy-allusions and uses economic informations to his shareholders for offering his openly prejudiced world view. The program may accelerate detection and provide powerful analytical capabilities. But legal systems should still rely on distinct and transparent evidence beyond automated data flags to establish credible charges and uphold judicial standards. Like all in the world is constantly transforming into something you did not imagine – may we be aware of it and taking the right decision. Or, as Alexander C. Karp tells us in his Letter to Shareholders: “This is still only the beginning of something much larger (…)”. May it be a good larger version of the world and not a dystopia.
