Protests outside NYC offices of Palantir, Google denounce data centers, facial recognition tech

Palantir’s unmarked NYC office usually flies under the radar, but it was hard to miss on Wednesday morning when hordes of protesters gathered outside it to condemn the tech company’s work with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The demonstration was a part of a weeklong anti-Big Tech movement percolating across the US, organized by activist groups like Make the Road, United Ratepayers, Food & Water Watch, and People’s Action Institute. “Dump Big Tech” is aimed at tech giants like Palantir, OpenAI, and Google; elected officials in New York, New Jersey, California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania; and data center construction sites in Oregon and West Virginia. The protests point to souring public sentiment surrounding Big Tech, especially ahead of midterm elections.

While each protest is centered on different issues, the event outside Palantir’s offices was squarely focused on the company’s connection with ICE. Speakers at the rally said they’re scared that ICE is using Palantir’s technology to surveil immigrant communities.

“My community has felt a sense of fear that no one should have to feel,” Faith, a youth organizer for Make The Road, an immigrant justice group, told the crowd. (Organizers asked that Faith be identified only by her first name for her safety.) “Palantir working with ICE makes me worry deeply about privacy and about people getting caught up in systems that don’t feel fair, transparent, or humane.”

Because of fears about Palantir using its facial recognition technology against protesters, a majority wore disposable masks, while others wore paper masks decorated with the faces of cartoon characters and superheroes that obscured their entire visage.

“That’s a big fear, that a lot of our data and our identities [will] be tracked by Palantir because we’re here, or because we’re against the violence that ICE is enacting,” Jennifer, a Make the Road organizer who declined to share her surname, told us. “We know that it’s happening across the board, not only to undocumented people. US citizens that are speaking up are being tracked.”

She said she and other protesters hoped the demonstrations encourage elected officials to “look into the contracts” the government has with Big Tech companies and “undo all of the massive surveillance and use of AI that’s only hurting communities.”

NY Assemblymember Claire Valdez, who recently won the Democratic nomination for a US House seat in New York’s 7th Congressional District, also spoke at the rally and offered alternative uses for AI and the advanced technology coming out of companies like Palantir.

“This technology should be used to make our lives better. It should be used to shorten our working hours. It should be used to make our productivity actually pay us more. It should be used to tackle the real emergencies that we are facing right now, like climate change. Instead it is being used by billionaires and tech oligarchs to tear our communities apart,” Valdez said. “We are not going to take it anymore…While Palantir is surveilling us, we are watching them.”

At another demonstration a few blocks away in front of Google’s NYC offices earlier that day, protesters chastised the company for its data centers’ considerable water, energy, and potential fossil fuel usage. Protester Zack Winestine, part of the Rise and Resist direct action group, said he was also demonstrating against “unregulated AI” and Google specifically “forcing people to use AI” when using its search engine.

“AI is not inevitable. There’s all this hype that it can’t be stopped. That’s nonsense. People have agency. People have the right to determine how their lives will be lived and under what circumstances technology functions in their lives,” Winestine told us. “We can affect how these things develop.”