An estimated 1500 nurses marched outside the ICE field office in San Francisco last week to demand that their hospitals break ties with Palantir, the multibillion dollar AI software corporation. A sea of nurses filled Sansome and Market streets, standing up for their patients and calling for an end to dangerous AI technology and surveillance in their hospitals.
Palantir has reported “otherworldly” levels of profit as it secured lucrative contracts both in the military and in the massive mobilization of ICE across the United States. The app they created for ICE surveillance uses data pulled from Medicaid patient records, including addresses and immigration status. Nurses are standing up across the country to fight this malicious use of people’s private health records. Patients deserve to be able to share sensitive information with their healthcare providers without fear that their data will be fed into a militarized surveillance and detention apparatus.
Nurses are also fighting against Palantir contracts in their hospitals that use AI for appointment scheduling, hospital workflows, and insurance claims. Nurses want their hospital budgets to be used for safe staffing and patient care, not to purchase expensive and untested software.
The march in San Francisco was organized by National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association and was part of a global week of action demanding that public institutions break ties with Palantir. Registered Nurse and NNU President Jamie Brown said, “… Nurses aren’t just saying no to Palantir, but we’re calling for our public resources to go toward the benefit of working people, not billionaires and their corporations.”
Nurses advocate every day for their patients, and they speak up if something is wrong. We stand with nurses as they put their patients first, and fight back against the tech billionaires’ profit-driven surveillance machine.
