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German lawmakers are questioning their government on the World Food Programme and Palantir, while WFP’s hacked beneficiary data collection app just won an award.
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Today: German government pressured on WFP and Palantir, WFP’s hacked data registration app wins an award, and what’s going on at the FAO?
Das Welternährungsprogramm |
Whether you’re an aid recipient, a staff member, a donor, or just a lowly journalist, the World Food Programme hasn’t been very forthcoming lately.
WFP has repeatedly sidestepped questions about the data and safety of people in Gaza, or its renewed relationship with Palantir, the AI analytics firm and military contractor whose work helps militaries target and kill.
This has caught the attention of several German lawmakers.
Alarmed by recent tech trends and dissatisfied with WFP’s public response, several members of The Left Party, a parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, recently questioned the government on WFP and Palantir as part of an interpellation or questions process.
WFP’s disclosure of information has been inadequate, they said, and Germany, as one of its largest donors, has a particular responsibility for holding the agency accountable.
“How the WFP handles the data leak and its cooperation with Palantir is likely to set a precedent for the future handling of personal data in development cooperation and humanitarian aid,” the lawmakers wrote.
Quick recap: A May cyber-attack exposed data belonging to most of Gaza’s surviving population. WFP restarted data collection in Gaza in July but has ignored questions about the breach from media, other aid workers, and donors. Israel’s military uses data and AI-enabled analytics to target and kill. In parallel, WFP’s relationship with Palantir has come under growing scrutiny, especially as governments and publics debate partnering with the controversial firm. WFP sees itself as the backbone of global humanitarian logistics, and is building its growth strategy around new technology experiments (read more about this tech below) and controlling beneficiary data from across the humanitarian system.
The list of questions and replies are here in German. A few of the questions (and government answers):
- When did WFP inform the government of the cyber-attack? (30 May – a day before people in Gaza were told, and more than two weeks after WFP learned of the breach)
- What does the government know about WFP’s tech use and data security practices? (It has “only limited knowledge”)
- What does it think of WFP working with Palantir? (It acknowledges “potential risks” of WFP collaborating with Palantir in Gaza but says WFP has assured it that the data is secure, no beneficiary info is processed by Palantir, and personal info is anonymised before being processed by Palantir-supported, WFP-run platforms)
- What evidence does it have of the above? (None provided)
- Does Germany intend to collaborate with Palantir on humanitarian or development issues? (No)
What the MPs say: The situation “shows a severe lack of accountability”, and governments must take a more active role, said Charlotte Neuhäuser, the member of parliament who initiated the Bundestag questions. “Personal data has become a core element of modern warfare,” Neuhäuser said in an emailed reply to our follow-up query. “In this specific case, hundreds of thousands of sensitive records covering almost the entire Palestinian population were hacked. People should be concerned. The passive stance of governments creates a highly dangerous situation for vulnerable populations like in Gaza.” Neuhäuser is the spokesperson for global justice and development policy in The Left Party’s parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
WFP awards season |
WFP’s hacked beneficiary data collection app has won an in-house award, and could be rolled out to more operations.
The team behind People Portal, the beneficiary self-registration app that WFP says was hacked during the May cyber-attack, was one of five teams honoured with a WFP Innovation Award, the organisation said in September.
The award recognises teams “showcasing exceptional progress and scale of innovative solutions”.
“Recent challenges of the past months have served as a catalyst for strengthening security practices and positioning the platform to scale effectively across both emergency and long term contexts,” an anthropomorphised People Portal was quoted as saying, in accepting the award.
Next steps for the app include “expanding to more operations, enhancing interoperability with WFP systems, and refining features based on real world impact”.
People Portal was active in several emergency operations, including in Palestine, Ukraine, and Sudan, WFP said earlier this year. Only data affecting the self-registration app in Palestine was exposed in the May cyber-attack, WFP told us back when we were still on speaking terms.
People Portal is one of several pieces of WFP tech to claim some hardware this year. An enterprise deduplication tool was also given an innovation award during the same soirée.
The tool uses AI and photos to detect “possible duplicate records” in food registration. WFP has previously boasted that it is “among the first UN agencies to use photo-based technology and artificial intelligence to analyse large volumes of images in seconds” through its deduplication tech.
The deduplication tech was piloted in Mali. Earlier, a 2024 internal audit of WFP operations in Mali warned of “challenges with identity management” and the risk of duplications.
- But that’s not all: SCOUT, an AI supply chain optimisation tool that sits on the Palantir-enabled DOTS platform, will be given a medal for “excellence in humanitarian logistics” from the Germany-headquartered Logistics Hall of Fame. WFP may need some super-intelligence to figure out how to ship their award back to Rome. Seriously, look at the size of this medal.
- UN 2.0: Earlier, SCOUT also received an honourable mention at the UN 2.0 awards, which are meant to celebrate “the exceptional teams whose innovation is transforming the United Nations system”.
- Pushing boundaries: Where will “America First” WFP boss Luke Lindberg push the agency on data, tech, and partnerships? The WFP innovation team has some ideas. Lindberg “provides us with an opportunity to push the boundaries of what’s possible”, WFP Innovation Accelerator said in a post on the people’s hot take app, Linkedin. The innovation accelerator is meant to pilot and scale new projects.
End quote|
“We need to speak up for those principles, defend those principles, and make sure they’re part of the discourse… Because otherwise, why are we here?”
What’s going on at the FAO? Senior official Benjamin Davis says he was ousted from the UN agency for food and agriculture, in part for participating in moments of silence for Gaza, and for an FAO briefing he worked on that connected caloric intake and Israel’s starvation of Gaza to international humanitarian and human rights law.
Meanwhile, FAO boss Qu Dongyu alarmed staff by musing about firing someone – presumably Davis – for “playing the game… of human rights” and threatening to fire others.
On the first day after his contract ended, Davis spoke to TNH contributor Thin Lei Win to outline what happened, and why he’s speaking up. He also has words of advice for others in the aid system who may be facing moral dilemmas:
“I would have liked some more of the senior managers to step up and just go to the minute of silence – that kind of thing. But I tell people – because a lot of people are bummed out, they don’t know what to do, they’re very disheartened – I say, just do whatever little you can do. Don’t despair.”
Read the interview here.
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