NYC Kicks Palantir Out of Public Hospitals

TL;DR: NYC Health + Hospitals CEO Mitchell Katz announced on March 16 that Palantir's contract won't be renewed when it expires in October. The same company that runs ICE's deportation targeting software had been scanning patient health records at 11 public hospitals serving over a million New Yorkers, including some of the city's largest immigrant communities. After The Intercept exposed the $4 million deal in February, activists demanded the hospital system cut ties. They won. The data analysis work will be brought in-house. One down, but Palantir still has contracts with ICE, the Pentagon, and the NSA.

What Happened

At a March 16 New York City Council meeting, NYC Health + Hospitals CEO Mitchell Katz disclosed what activists had been demanding for weeks: Palantir's contract will not be renewed.

The contract expires in October 2026. After that, the company that helps ICE decide which addresses to raid will no longer have access to patient records from Bellevue, Elmhurst, Jacobi, and the city's eight other public hospitals.

Katz tried to downplay the victory, insisting the contract "was always intended to be a short-term solution" and that an "absolute firewall" existed between patient data and government customers like ICE. "We haven't had any problems," he said. "And we're going to end the contract anyway."

Translation: we were doing it until you caught us, and now we're stopping.

The People Who Made This Happen

This wasn't a change of heart. This was pressure.

After The Intercept published its exposé in February, a coalition of New York organizations went to work. New York Communities for Change, the American Friends Service Committee, Make the Road New York, the Climate Organizing Hub, and the Strong Economy For All Coalition all demanded the hospital system sever ties with Palantir.

Community members testified at City Council. AFSC published a map revealing Palantir's institutional connections across the country. Activists pointed out that the same company scanning hospital billing records was simultaneously providing ICE with surveillance systems and the U.S. military with AI targeting platforms.

The message was simple: Palantir makes money enabling mass surveillance and deportations. They shouldn't be in our hospitals.

Kenny Morris, AFSC organizer: "Palantir makes money by enabling mass violence in the U.S. and around the world. They should have no place in our hospitals, our pension funds, or our government."

Jennifer Hernandez, Make the Road New York: "Palantir has no place in our city, and especially not with safety net hospitals."

Michael Kink, Strong Economy For All Coalition: "HHC's action should be the first step to detaching all city contracts."

What Palantir Was Actually Doing

NYC Health + Hospitals paid Palantir nearly $4 million since 2023. The official purpose: "revenue cycle optimization," making sure the hospital system captured every charge it could bill to Medicaid and other public benefits.

In practice, Palantir's software automatically scanned patient health notes to find services doctors provided but forgot to bill for. Every diagnosis, every treatment, every medication, all processed by Palantir's systems.

The contract also permitted Palantir to "de-identify PHI and utilize de-identified PHI for purposes other than research." That's a broad license to use your health data however they want, as long as they strip your name off first.

The problem: Palantir's entire business model is connecting data across multiple sources. They run ICE's FALCON and ImmigrationOS deportation platforms. They have access to Thomson Reuters CLEAR, driver's license databases, and (through a data-sharing agreement we covered in January) Medicaid records for 80 million patients.

A company that specializes in connecting dots had access to NYC hospital records. Now it doesn't.

Who This Protects

NYC Health + Hospitals serves some of the city's most vulnerable communities:

Over 1 million patients annually
More than 475,000 uninsured patients
Services interpreted in 190+ languages

Elmhurst Hospital in Queens serves one of the most diverse immigrant populations in the country. Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx serves predominantly low-income Hispanic and Black communities. These are the hospitals where people go when they can't afford private care, and where they have the most to fear if their data ends up with a company that builds ICE's targeting systems.

When immigrants fear their health data could be used against them, they stop going to the doctor. That's a public health crisis. It's also why this fight mattered.

What Comes Next

Katz said the data analysis work previously handled by Palantir will be brought in-house. That's the right call. Healthcare data shouldn't be processed by surveillance contractors.

But activists aren't done. Michael Kink called this "the first step to detaching all city contracts" with Palantir. The company still holds contracts throughout the U.S. government, including the $60 million ImmigrationOS deal with ICE and the $10 billion Maven project with the Pentagon. It is also building DOGE's cross-agency master database.

This is one contract, one city. The model works: expose the deal, organize the community, apply pressure, win. Every Palantir contract can be challenged the same way.

What You Can Do

Check Your City

Does your city's hospital system have contracts with Palantir? With other surveillance contractors? File public records requests. Find out who's processing your health data.

Use This Playbook

Media exposé → community organizing → City Council testimony → contract termination. New York proved it works. Your city can do the same.

Support the Organizations

AFSC, Make the Road, New York Communities for Change: these groups did the work. Support them so they can keep fighting.

Watch for Renewals

The contract ends in October. Make sure it stays ended. Watch for quiet renewals, rebranded contracts, or new vendors with the same problems.

References

Published: March 28, 2026