Palantir Technologies, a Silicon Valley firm, markets what it calls an “analytical intelligence platform” for corporate and government customers, though it’s technology is most publicly associated with its work for the intelligence and defense communities. The technology, which is modeled after software used to spot crime in the financial sector, looks for anomalies in a variety of data sources, ranging from news sources to social media. For national security customers, Palantir is used to help spot terrorist plots and insurgent networks, and the software has reportedly been used to thwart a number of suicide bombings and roadside bomb attacks. According to the Wall Street Journal, Palantir has been used by the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation The Pentagon’s bomb-fighting agency, the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), says that Palantir was used to analyze “linked nodal networks, histogram data, and timeline views” related to improvised explosive device attacks. According to JIEDDO, Palantir’s technology has been involved in hundreds of investigations and has been used by personal in U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Africa Command. Palantir has also received funding from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA.
Source(s): Wall Street Journal, Palantir Technologies, JIEDDO