At Thomson Reuters, our purpose is to inform the way forward by delivering trusted content, expertise and technology that professionals and institutions need to make the right decisions. Providing this information carries real responsibility, and we hold ourselves to it – especially when it comes to those who protect our communities, including law enforcement and government agencies. We’re committed to supporting their work and doing so in a way that upholds strong human rights standards and our terms of use.
Recent media reporting has speculated about how our data is used by government agencies and third-party technology platforms – in our view this reflects misunderstandings about how our products are governed and safeguarded. Given these topics sit at the intersection of national security, public safety, and individual rights, we think it’s important to share the facts and provide some context that may be missing from the conversation.
Our Products
We provide technology and services that support investigations into areas of national security and public safety, such as child exploitation, human trafficking, narcotics and weapons trafficking and financial crime. In time-sensitive investigations when a child is missing, an active crime scene is unfolding, or an illicit drug interception is in progress, our tools provide law enforcement access to critical information when every second counts. It’s important to note our investigative solutions are not surveillance tools and do not have surveillance capabilities.
One of these products is Thomson Reuters CLEAR, a research and investigative tool that is licensed exclusively to select businesses, law enforcement and government agencies to help expedite investigative processes in legitimate legal investigations. Much of the data CLEAR provides – such as court and property records – is publicly available. All of this data is licensable directly from third parties. CLEAR does not contain the types of information that law enforcement traditionally need a warrant to obtain, and CLEAR does not include information about an individual’s citizenship or immigration status. In fact, immigration status is not a search field in CLEAR.
Some of the recent speculation in the press has confused CLEAR and License Plate Recognition (LPR), a Motorola product that we offer. These are two separate products. A customer can subscribe to either or both. For example, our $22.8 million DHS contract does not include CLEAR. Regardless, LPR is not capable of tracking real time locations of a vehicle; it provides access to ad hoc images collected randomly.
Our Governance
We take seriously the legality and legitimacy of our products. They are provided under strict contractual terms, subject to applicable law, and governed by strong safeguards that limit and monitor how our products and services are used. We are confident in these controls. The appropriate use of CLEAR is also supported by credentialing to ensure our customers have a valid legal use for the solution, compliance requirements, and controls to monitor the product’s use to ensure it is being used appropriately. Where potential misuse is identified, we act promptly and decisively, including suspending and/or cancelling access when warranted. Our standard terms do not allow the redistribution of CLEAR data to third parties, and, after a contract is ended, they provide that no CLEAR data may be retained by any customer.
Palantir is not a customer of CLEAR.
Our Human Rights Commitments
Respecting human rights is core to how we operate, and we’ve built a governance framework to make sure that commitment is inherent in how we operate. It’s aligned with internationally recognized standards, and it helps us build awareness and accountability into our operations, products, and services.
We are aligned with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which is the global standard for identifying and addressing human rights risks connected to business activity. It gives companies like ours an internationally accepted framework to work from.
We look closely at how we can keep improving. As outlined in our Proxy Circular, we have recently completed our second human rights saliency and impact assessment (HRSA/HRIA) covering our global operations, services, and products, including our investigative solutions. The 2025 assessment was carried out with an independent consultancy that specializes in human rights and responsible innovation and with legal counsel for ongoing assessment work. We are confident the risk indicators applied in this assessment are robust and relevant today. We plan to publish key findings on our website later this year.
When we think about the potential human rights impacts of how our products and services are used, we listen carefully – to both external voices and those of our own employees. Our Code of Conduct lays out clear channels for colleagues to raise questions or concerns, and we take employee feedback seriously. Our current focus is to help our teams better understand our products in context, so they can engage with the issues and address any misconceptions along the way.
Why context matters
These topics deserve scrutiny. They also benefit from accuracy and clarity.
Thomson Reuters remains focused on supporting lawful investigations that make a positive impact on communities through our people, products, and partnerships, while maintaining strong safeguards around responsible data use.
Both priorities guide our work.
