Is Palantir Under Contract to Surveil the Federal Workforce?
Implementation of the White House’s return-to-office directive will be aided by the tech firm Palantir. It remains unclear why a spy-tech company should be tasked with things like “employee seat assignments.”

The dark wizard Saruman consults a palantír in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The surveillance software firm Palantir took its name from J. R. R. Tolkien’s “seeing stones.” (New Line Cinema)
Palantir, the Donald Trump–connected spy-tech and AI firm, just scored a no-bid government contract potentially worth millions to help the Agriculture Department implement the White House’s divisive return-to-office directive. Under the guise of national security, the highly “sensitive” tasks to be handled by the billion-dollar tech behemoth will include “employee seat assignments” and “space utilization.”
Despite vague contract details, the project could potentially bring a workforce surveillance technology known as bossware to the federal workforce, despite concerns about its mental and physical toll on workers and its potential for errors and discrimination.
“In light of the Trump administration’s war on public-service workers, there’s reason to fear this Palantir ‘return-to-office tool’ will be deployed to further surveil and intimidate the remaining federal workforce,” said Paul Sonn, state policy program director at the National Employment Law Project, a workers’ rights advocacy nonprofit.