US HHS adopts Palantir platform for nationwide health data-mining

The US Department of Health and Human Services has awarded a contract to build a database system, HHS Protect Now, to track the spread of the coronavirus across the US to the data-mining company Palantir. Palantir founder and investor Peter Thiel was US president Donald Trump's earliest and highest-profile Silicon Valley backer. The platform pulls data from across the federal, state, and local governments as well as health care facilities and colleges, and works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Emergency Management System. Every night since the system became operational on April 10 the resulting analysis is sent to Dr Deborah Birx, who coordinates the Trump administration's coronavirus response. 

Source: https://gizmodo.com/trump-admin-gives-coronavirus-tracking-contract-to-pete-1842994647

Writer: Erin Banco and Spencer Ackerman
Publication: The Daily Beast