2009-2022 Aadhaar Data Scandal

• Accenture established a stronghold in India, where they built the world’s largest database of biometric data used to track and police the movement of migrants.  The contract gives Accenture the right to “use, store, transfer, process, and link” data to any individual.

• Accenture is the new knowledge partner for the national Artificial Intelligence Strategy of India.

• Scholars and activists warn Aadhaar is being used to create a state of mass statelessness for targeted minorities, including Muslims, underage unmarried women, LGBTQ+ individuals, Bengalis, and more.

2011 Agencies of the United States Bid Fixing Scandal

• Accenture settled a lawsuit that alleged it received kickbacks for improper recommendations to the government, fraudulently inflated prices, and rigged bids with federal IT contracts.

• Over six federal departments were included in the suit. Accenture was charged with fraudulently submitting payments.

2016 The Luxembourg Leaks 

• Accenture agreed to pay $200m to settle tax claims related to the Luxembourg Leaks – 546 secret tax deals involving more than 1,000 businesses. 

• In one case revealed in the Luxembourg Leaks, Accenture shielded $5.8 billion in value from tax regulators.

2018 U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP Scandal)

• CBP awarded Accenture a $297 million contract to help hire 5,000 border patrol agents. Despite charging $13 million and spending 10 months on the contract, they only hired 2 border patrol agents.

• By 2019, the CBP spent $19 million to hire 58 people. The contract was canceled

2020 The Luanda Leaks 

• For $54m, Accenture worked for Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s first female billionaire and daughter of Angola’s autocratic then-president Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

• Accenture was part of a system in which dos Santos laundered her money and hired well-reputed consultancies that gave a stamp of legitimacy to her empire.

2020 Accenture German Contracting Scandal 

• German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen was investigated for her ministry preferentially advantaging Accenture.

2023 DOJ Investigation

• Accenture disclosed that the DOJ was probing into their division that provides services to the federal government over Accenture’s inadequate implementation of key security controls. 

2024 Accenture Canadian Outsourcing Scandal

• Accenture secured a backroom deal for $61 million to administer the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA), a government-run business loan program set up during COVID-19.

• Of the $78.4-million spent on the CEBA program up to Aug. 13, 2021, $61.2-million went to Accenture in a deal that was never disclosed to the public.

2024 LA County Pretrial Services Illegal Capture Scandal

• Accenture receives a bloated $8.6 million contract from LA County to redesign pretrial services, despite the protests of community organizations.

• Leading legal firm focusing on injustices in the criminal system, Civil Rights Corps, sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors alleging the contract was not only improper but also an illegal use of County authority to circumvent standard procurement policies.

#ExposeAccenture, a new advocacy group, was launched to challenge Accenture’s illegal capture of a key public safety initiative. Community groups are organizing themselves to fight back against Accenture’s corrupt capture of key public safety initiatives

See: Palantir and Accenture Federal Services Join Forces to Help Federal Government Agencies Reinvent Operations with AI

Accenture/Palantir have a very close collaborative relationship, including winning contracts together. Palantir website advertising partnership

Palantir and Accenture jointly won UK NHS contract

• Tweet advertising and medium article re shared workspace

• Inaugural AI for War conference in May 2024

• Norwegian investor dropped bc of fear of war crimes by Israel in Occupied Palestine

• 2025 UK police AI

In 2017, Amnesty International drew attention to the partnership between Palantir and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which earned the company as much as $127 million for providing technology that facilitated the surveillance and arrest of migrants and asylum-seekers. The company is widely known as “the AI arms dealer of the 21st century”, and its work in Israel involves both warfare and surveillance technology. It developed an artificial intelligence platform (AIP) that analyses enemy targets and proposes battle plans, supplying advanced and powerful targeting capabilities. Some articles explicitly associate Palantir to the algorithmic “kill lists” that are also associated with Unit 8200 (see above), though others note that “it’s not clear that Palantir’s fingerprints were on any technology related to the IDF’s AI kill-search-destroy program”.  Palantir has stated it uses large-language models (LLMs) and algorithms in war settings but the Business and Human Rights Centre says it does not explicitly state how it would address human rights risks such as the risk to life, the right to privacy and the right to information. 

Palantir vocally supports and profits from Israel’s violence. See profile + Palantir stock given Israel’s war

• In January 2024, Palantir signed a new deal with the Israeli Defense Ministry to “supply technology to help the country’s war effort”, with Palantir co-founders Peter Thiel and Alex Karp signing the deal in person in Tel Aviv. The company also held a board meeting in Tel Aviv for the first time, to demonstrate solidarity with Israel after October 7th. During this meeting, the CEO highlighted Palantir’s support for Israel even before October 7th “our products have been in great demand…We have begun supplying different products than we supplied before (the war). 

• Peter Thiel has publicly stated his “bias is to defer to Israel…I believe that broadly the IDF gets to decide what it wants to do, and that they’re broadly in the right.”

Contracts that Accenture and Palantir both hold

• Joint contract to implement a data exchange system for the UK's national health service, totalling $415 million (link) [this takes up most of the media airwaves - difficult to find contracts outside of this].

  • Revolving door: Matthew Swindells who was previously deputy chief executive and director of operations at the NHS until 2019 - after which he went to go and work at Global Counsel (a lobbying consultancy), during which time Palantir was a client, while also doing some advisory work at Accenture.

• In 2022, a formal partnership between Accenture and Palantir Foundry was initiated to build a new innovation centre that will develop expertise in integrating disparate datasets and applying new AI techniques to solve "big problems" - Palantir Foundry software has been used for predictive policing applications (link).

  • Prior to this partnership, Palantir and Accenture appeared to be major competitors, especially for public sector contracts (See e.g., this large US Army contract here, where they were competitors).

  • No other joint contracts found since this partnership

• Sidenote: DOGE has cancelled US $55 million in Accenture government contracts but $0 in Palantir contracts as of March 2025.

Existing campaigns have already emerged on Palantir

• Health workers: There is already an active campaign supported by Medact. Just Treatment, Health Workers for Palestine and Corporate Watch to cancel the Palantir UK National Health Service (NHS) contract (which is held jointly with Accenture). Actions include submission to the Change NHS consultation on the 10 Year Health Plan and articles in the British Medical Journal. This calls for Palantir’s contract cancellation due its position as a key military supporter of the Israeli state, as well as against wider outsourcing, privatisation and surveillance of UK health services. Dr Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne has written an op-ed against Palantir’s involvement in the NHS. Health workers have already picketed NHS England in opposition to Palantir’s involvement. 

• Employees: Palantir’s CEO has publicly stated that the company has lost employees over its public support for Israel, with some discussion by software engineers.

• Divestment: Palantir works closely with Israeli Unit 8200 One of Norway’s largest investors has divested its $24 million holding in Palantir over the company’s sale of products to Israel for use in occupied Palestinian territories, which Storebrand Asset Management was concerned would put the investor at risk of violating international humanitarian law and human rights. Its analysis indicated that Palantir’s products and services, “including AI-based predictive policing systems” support Israel surveillance of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Focus has been on an Irish state-owned investment fund over its shares in Palantir due to its links to the IDF. 

Nation: Video and images protesting Palantir in UK

• Palantir has AI targeting software used extensively by Ukraine. They have not confirmed or denied it is in part or whole the software underlying Israel’s AI targeting.

• “As one of the world’s most advanced data-mining companies, with ties to the CIA, Palantir’s “work” was supplying Israel’s military and intelligence agencies with advanced and powerful targeting capabilities—the precise capabilities that allowed Israel to place three drone-fired missiles into three clearly marked aid vehicles.”

• “And it is extremely powerful data-mining software, such as that from Palantir, that helps the IDF to select targets. While the company does not disclose operational details, some indications of the power and speed of its AI can be understood by examining its activities on behalf of another client at war: Ukraine. Palantir is “responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine,” according to Karp. “From the moment the algorithms set to work detecting their targets [i.e., people] until these targets are prosecuted [i.e., killed]—a term of art in the field—no more than two or three minutes elapse,” noted Bruno Macaes, a former senior Portuguese official who was given a tour of Palantir’s London headquarters last year. “In the old world, the process might take six hours.”

The Investigate project of the American Friends Service Committee has compiled and published extensive evidence of Northrop Grumman’s involvement in war crimes against Palestinian citizens, although it’s perhaps worth flagging that some of the sources are quite old and not easy to verify. From the report: “Northrop Grumman supplies the Israeli military with a wide variety of weapons, including various missile systems. The company's technologies are also integrated into Israel's main weapon systems, including its fighter jets, missile ships, and trainer aircraft. These weapons are often gifted to Israel through the U.S. government's Foreign Military Financing program.”

Contracts and joint statements between Accenture and Northrop Grumman

Contractual relationships

• Contract together for military consulting U.S. Transportation Command. Contracted together for IT contract with US Navy

• Subcontracting: Accenture Federal Services has subcontracted Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation for procurement in support of a Statement of Work (SOW) related to a prime award from ACC Rock Island (a division of the U.S. Army). The subcontract has a potential value of over $16 million, with the most recent award date in November 2024.

• Potential Teaming for Bids: In 2011, CWTSatoTravel (part of the Navitaire group, which Accenture owned at the time) and Northrop Grumman formed a "teaming agreement" to bid on the e-Gov Travel Service 2.0 (ETS2) contract.

Partnerships

• CyberFirst Program: Both Accenture and Northrop Grumman have at one time been listed as "Industry Members" of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) CyberFirst program. 

Accenture hiring Northrup Grumman personnel 

• Accenture Hires Northrop Grumman Executive: In April 2020, George Khater, formerly an executive account leader at Northrop Grumman, joined Accenture Federal Services as a director of business development. 

• Accenture Employee Previously at Northrop Grumman: Angela M. Ambrose, who was appointed Vice President of Government Operations at Oshkosh Corporation in July 2024, previously held private sector legislative roles at both Accenture's federal practice (leading the defense portfolio) and as the chief congressional strategist for Northrop Grumman's aerospace business. 

Accenture recently wrote a report titled “Securing strategic advantage for defense companies: International Defense Insight Report” in 2023, outlining the following recommendations a) think globally, engage selectively; b) embrace disruptive technologies, and c) overcome regional barriers. This reported growing geopolitical instability as “new engines of growth”. 

Accenture with other US defense companies

Meta: 

• • Included in DOD adoption of "Llama" the Meta military AI in Nov. 2024

  • WhatsApp content moderation contractor (How Facebook Undermines Privacy Protections for Its 2 Billion WhatsApp Users — ProPublica)

Lockheed Martin:

• • 2006 - Accenture partnered with Lockheed Martin to create a Border Enforcement Solutions Center that formed part of a plan to “secure America’s borders and reduce illegal immigration”. 

  • 2019 - Accenture worked together with iBase-t to implement a digital manufacturing and quality control solutions suite that will serve as Lockheed Martin’s next-generation manufacturing execution system.

L3Harris:

• • 2024 - Accenture and L3Harris announced a strategic collaboration to “accelerate [L3Harris’] technology reinvention”, with a significant portion of L3Harris’ IT professionals joining Accenture.

BAE Systems

• • 2011 - Accenture was hired by BAE to develop a long-term human capital analysis. 

  • 2018 - the US Defense Information Systems Agency awarded a contract to a pool including Accenture, BAE Systems, Booz Allen, Northrop (it’s unclear if the contracts were jointly held, or individual). 

  • 2022 - Accenture partnered with BAE on the Intelligent TrustEd SuppLy ChaIn (INTELI) project, led by BAE and Digital Catapult - aiming to manage the supply chain through digital solutions to “improve additive manufacturing processes for high value aerospace components. 

  • 2023 - the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) in the UK awarded a £2.4bn contract for digital and legacy application services to 23 suppliers including Accenture and BAE Systems.