Last month, the SIX community got some exciting and unexpected news. 

Following our campaign with progressive NGO GetUp, supermarket Coles confirmed they won’t continue their contract with US tech company Palantir beyond 2027 (Palantir is a company that has been linked to potential and actual human rights violations across multiple countries). 

It was a great demonstration of what change we can create when shareholders and the broader community speak up on social justice issues.

But Coles is not the only Australian company working with Palantir. Westpac Banking Corporation (ASX:WBC) is too.

Westpac holds a contract with Palantir, and seems to be the only one of our big four Australian Banks to do so. The details are scarce. This raises many of the same concerns as the Coles campaign floated - why are our banks and our supermarkets signing contracts with this problematic company? 

‍

Human rights violations

Palantir has been connected to potential and actual human rights violations across multiple countries. It has been criticized by the UN for profiting off Israel’s occupation of Palestine, through allegedly offering AI-assisted targeting systems to the IDF.¹ Palantir also built software for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to identify targets for its unlawful detentions and violent raids².

Privacy concerns‍

This contract raises concerns about what information Palantir has access to, given the company has been tied to privacy violations in the past. For instance, in the UK Palantir indicated it only processes National Healthcare System (NHS) data - then it emerged Palantir staff had access to identifiable patient data and personal records on up to 1.5 million NHS employees³. Human rights organisation Digital Rights Watch named the recent Coles-Palantir partnership as part of a “worrying trend” of Australian companies choosing to work with Palantir⁴ - a trend that Westpac, too, has opted into.

Lack of transparency

There is little public information from Westpac on what the contract covers, how long it will run for, and if Palantir can access customer data (and if so, what data). GetUp and SIX have approached the company directly to seek further information.

We are seeking 100+ shareholders by Monday 12 October, to unlock our right to lodge a shareholder resolution and put this issue front and centre at the bank’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) later this year.

To learn more about the campaign and ways to get involved, head to our campaign page! 

And to learn more about who Palantir is, check out our blog "Who is Palantir?"

[1] Albanese, F. (2025). From economy of occupation to economy of genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (A/HRC/59/23). United Nations Human Rights Council.

[2] Joseph Cox, 404, “ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid”, 2026.

[3] More than 100 Palantir staff have access to NHS systems. (2026, July 18). Good Law Project. https://goodlawproject.org/more-than-100-palantir-staff-have-access-to-nhs-systems/

[4] Digital Rights Watch (2026, February 1). Palantir in Australia.