The Metropolitan Police deployed Palantir's AI surveillance software against its own workforce for one week. The results exposed a department rotting from within.

Three officers have been arrested for offences including abuse of authority for sexual purposes, fraud, sexual assault, misconduct in public office, and misuse of police systems. Ninety-eight officers are being assessed for misconduct related to systematic corruption of the IT rostering system for personal and financial gain. Another 500 received formal prevention notices for the same offence.

Forty-two senior officers, ranging from chief inspector to chief superintendent, are under investigation for "serious noncompliance" after the AI found they had falsely claimed to be in the office while working from home or absent for extended periods. The Met's guidelines require at least 80% in-office attendance.

Twelve officers face gross misconduct charges for failing to declare Freemason membership, now a mandatory disclosure within the force. A further 30 received prevention notices for suspected undeclared membership.

One Week of AI Surveillance. Hundreds of Cases.

The software ran for just seven days, processing data the Met already held. It did not require new surveillance powers or external data sources. It simply connected dots that existed across siloed internal systems: shift rosters, building access logs, IT audit trails, HR declarations, financial records.

The scale of what it found in seven days is the story. Corruption was the most consistent category. Nearly 100 officers gaming the shift system. Dozens of senior leaders lying about their physical presence. Secret society memberships hidden from mandatory disclosure. And in the most serious cases, criminal conduct that had apparently gone undetected by conventional oversight.

Commissioner Mark Rowley framed it as necessary modernisation: "Criminals are constantly adapting how they use technology and policing has to keep pace, not just on the streets but within our own organisation."

The Palantir Problem

Palantir is not a neutral vendor. The company has deep ties to ICE and the Trump administration's immigration enforcement apparatus, to the Israeli military, and to intelligence agencies globally. UK MPs recently demanded that a separate 330 million pound Palantir contract with the NHS be scrapped. The Met is simultaneously negotiating to buy more Palantir technology for criminal investigations.

The internal deployment raises a question that will define AI-era policing: if one week of pattern-matching on existing data can expose this much misconduct, what was the excuse for not finding it sooner? And what happens when this same capability is pointed permanently at civilians rather than cops?

The Met has already embraced drones and live facial recognition technology. Rowley says these tools help "build trust, reduce crime and raise standards." Whether the public agrees when the same AI that caught corrupt officers starts monitoring their neighbourhoods is another question entirely.

What to Watch

The disciplinary outcomes for the 98 corruption cases and 42 senior officer investigations will determine whether this was a genuine purge or a controlled disclosure. Other UK police forces will be watching closely. If the Met expands Palantir's role into criminal investigations, the precedent shifts from internal accountability to mass surveillance with a proven vendor and a controversial track record.

First reported by The Guardian. Additional reporting from LBC.