"Nobody talks about Germany anymore"

• Palantir is one of the most controversial companies in the world. Now it turns out that Palantir CEO Alex Karp is at least as polarising as his company. Karp holds disturbingly radical views on migration policy in particular.

• Palantir is particularly heavily criticised in Germany. But by his own admission, Karp hardly cares about his business in Germany. Find out why the country is nevertheless so important to him in the big Handelsblatt interview.

• More and more police authorities are relying on the data analysis platform. But is Palantir's technology really as unique as the company claims? What alternatives are there from Germany and Europe?lesen Sie hier.

Palantir is one of the most valuable software companies in the world, with a market capitalisation that dwarfs even that of SAP. Palantir's programs that can analyse and link large amounts of data and recognise patterns in it,are used everywhere in the western world. And not only by corporations, but also by secret services, armed forces and police authorities.

This clientele also makes Palantir one of the most controversial companies in the world.The US immigration authority ICE, much criticised for its harsh methods works together with Palantir. The federal governmentargues about a Germany-wide introduction in the police forcein Baden-Württemberg, the black-green government almost collapsedin the project. NATO wants to implement Palantir's "Maven" software, and the Bundeswehr is set to follow suit.

Data protectionists warn of dependence on the USA in the area of security. Activists fear an uncontrollable outflow of data across the Atlantic. And ex-Palantir employees criticisethe erosion of civil rights by the Group.

While the company is booming in the USA and the UK, business in France and Germany is anything but smooth sailing for Palantir.

But that doesn't bother Alex Karp much, as he makes clear in an almost two-hour interview with Handelsblatt at the Palantir office in New York.