Coles cuts ties with controversial CIA-linked data giant Palantir

September 4, 2026 — 11:17amColes will cut ties with Palantir, the controversial US data giant whose software underpins American deportation raids and battlefield targeting systems.The supermarket has confirmed its contract with the company will not extend beyond 2027, ending a partnership signed in early 2024 that gave Palantir access to more than 10 billion rows of data covering every store, every shift and each of the retailer’s 120,000 employees.Coles’ decision came after a campaign that collected more than 85,000 signatures and placed digital billboards outside stores.Eamon Gallagher“Coles and Palantir have agreed to conclude their partnership after three years of collaboration,” the two companies said in an identical statement. Coles said a transition plan was under way and the final timing was not settled.The confirmation follows a campaign launched in February by activist group GetUp, which claimed the outcome as a win.“Nobody should need a national campaign to find out whether military-grade surveillance tech is watching them buy bread and milk,” interim chief executive Paul Ferris said.Activist group GetUp targeted Coles’ partnership with Palantir.“It’s a shame it took 85,000 people, 700 billboards and a shareholder resolution before Coles did what it should have on day one.”Neither company would say when the decision was made.The campaign gathered more than 85,000 signatures and put digital billboards outside close to 700 stores. One video accusing Coles of watching its shoppers was viewed 3 million times.Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel.BloombergPalantir, co-founded by Peter Thiel, built its business inside the US national security apparatus and sells to militaries, intelligence agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Thiel has said he no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible. The company is worth about $US330 billion ($459 billion).Its chief executive, Alex Karp, holds a doctorate in social theory from a German university, practises tai chi, and has published a manifesto arguing Palantir is the democratic West’s best hope of staying ahead of authoritarian rivals.Surveillance technology has become a flashpoint in Australian retail since the Administrative Review Tribunal ruled in February that Bunnings could keep using facial recognition to fight theft, while affirming it had breached privacy law by failing to tell customers. Coles has rejected the surveillance characterisation throughout, and says the campaign traded in misinformation.A spokesman said the software was used for rostering, store operations and supply chain planning, and ran inside Coles’ own environment under Coles controls.“Palantir does not control the data, nor can it independently repurpose it,” the spokesman said.Coles said Palantir had never been involved in CCTV, facial recognition or any of its crime-prevention measures. It does not use facial recognition in any store, and a limited proof of concept was run in a testing environment in response to rising violence against staff.The deal was pitched more expansively in 2024. Coles chief operating officer Matt Swindells said it would “redefine how we think about our workforce”. Palantir’s global head of commercial technologies, Ted Mabrey, said the retailer was not treating the software as a “toy”, pointing to Airbus crediting the company with a 30 per cent acceleration in A350 production.Much of a recent Coles letter to ethical share-trading platform SIX, seen by this masthead, was devoted to an attack on the campaign’s methods.Coles said GetUp had used footage of an identifiable worker at its Pacific Fair store and superimposed an employee number and an “84 per cent” working efficiency score over her image. Both were invented, the letter said, and came from no Coles system.The worker was recognised by others who saw the advertisement and was left distressed, according to the letter, and her mother lodged a written complaint. GetUp has said it bought the footage from a stock site and later blurred her face.“It is particularly troubling that this was done as part of a campaign being conducted in the name of employee privacy,” wrote Coles general manager of investor relations Anita Healy.The letter asked SIX to withdraw a shareholder resolution, backed by 189 individual investors, that called on the board to commission a human rights impact assessment ahead of November’s annual general meeting. Coles said SIX had since withdrawn it.SIX environmental, social and governance manager James Alexander said the outcome showed the power of small shareholders acting together.“Hundreds of Coles investors backed planned resolutions asking legitimate questions about data governance and human rights due diligence,” he said.Digital Rights Watch head of policy Tom Sulston said Palantir’s politics were incompatible with Australian values of fairness and equality.GetUp acting chief executive Paul Ferris claimed the outcome as a win. Steven Siewert“It doesn’t belong in Australia and it certainly doesn’t belong in the places we depend on day to day, like supermarkets,” he said.Coles is not the first customer to walk away. Spain has moved to block Palantir from public procurement, French and German intelligence agencies picked a domestic rival, and a British parliamentary committee recommended against renewing a contract.Palantir said its technology had delivered value across Coles’ operations and had helped the retailer put team members in the right place at the right time.Its other Australian clients include Westpac, Rio Tinto and WesTrac. Coles was its first Australian retailer.“Our privacy laws are decades behind this sort of technology,” Ferris said. “Coles was chapter one, but every board in the country should be checking its contracts.”Get news and reviews on technology, gadgets and gaming in our Technology newsletter every Friday. Sign up here.From our partners