UK universities paid private firm £440,000 to ‘track’ activities of pro-Palestine students: Report

The investigation revealed that Horus Security Consultancy Limited collected data from social media and prepared threat assessments for universities. The firm received at least £440,000 from 2022 for its services. Internal documents show it tracked protest activity, flagged student posts, and assessed risks linked to guest speakers and campus events.

The universities named include University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London, King’s College London, University of Sheffield, University of Leicester, University of Nottingham and Cardiff Metropolitan University. At least 12 institutions in total used the firm’s services. There is no indication that the activity broke the law.

Why were universities monitoring students?

Universities said they used the firm to track risks and ensure campus safety. Imperial College London said the information came from public sources and helped identify security concerns, including nearby protests, reported Al Jazeera. University of Sheffield said it used such services to “horizon scan” for large events that could affect operations and insisted it did not monitor individuals or share student data.

The firm offered a service called “Insight”, which gathered open-source intelligence using online tools. It also used artificial intelligence to analyse data collected from the internet. Critics raised concerns about how much information was being collected and how it might be used.

Gina Romero, the UN special rapporteur for Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, said, that the use of AI to harvest and analyse student data under the guise of open source intelligence raises profound legal concerns. She added that such systems allow large amounts of data to be collected without public oversight.

Who was affected by surveillance?

Documents reviewed by Al Jazeera English and Liberty show that students and academics involved in pro-Palestine activism were among those monitored. At the London School of Economics, briefings sent by the firm included social media posts by student activists. One post by PhD student Lizzie Hobbs was included in a daily update sent to university security teams.

Hobbs said she was unaware her posts were being tracked. “We knew surveillance was happening by the university, but it is shocking to see how systematized it is,” she said. She added that it was “deeply scary” to see the level of spending on such monitoring.

The firm also carried out a counter-terror threat assessment on Palestinian-American academic Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi before a lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University. The request was linked to the UK’s Prevent programme under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which requires universities to assess risks related to speakers.

Abdulhadi said she was shocked to learn about the assessment. “You’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but they actually made an assumption of guilt and started investigating me because of my scholarship,” she said.

Despite the assessment, the university allowed the event to go ahead with security in place after concluding there was no evidence linking her to banned groups.

The investigation also found that the University of Bristol asked the firm to monitor protest groups and provide alerts about activism across the city. Emails show the university requested updates on pro-Palestinian and animal rights groups.

A spokesperson for the university told Al Jazeera that the service relied on publicly available information and helped guide security decisions.

On its website, the firm said that it follows strong ethical standards and operates within the law.

The company was founded within the University of Oxford security structure in 2006 by Jonathan Whiteley. Its leadership includes Tim Collins, who has publicly linked pro-Gaza protests to foreign influence and called for stricter action against demonstrators.

The findings come amid a rise in pro-Palestine protests on campuses since late 2023, as students demanded universities review financial ties linked to Israel’s war in Gaza.