{"id":47817,"date":"2026-04-21T12:22:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=47817"},"modified":"2026-04-21T12:22:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:22:38","slug":"shameful-outrage-over-uk-universities-hiring-security-firm-to-spy-on-pro-palestinian-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/shameful-outrage-over-uk-universities-hiring-security-firm-to-spy-on-pro-palestinian-students\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Shameful\u2019: Outrage Over UK Universities Hiring Security Firm to Spy on Pro-Palestinian Students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"'Shameful':<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Protesters from the student block prepare to march along the Embankment holding signs and a giant flag during a protest on October 11, 2025 in London, England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Martin Pope\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe knew surveillance was happening by the university, but it is shocking to see how systematized it is,\u201d said one student.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apr 20, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A dozen universities in the UK are facing criticism after a joint<\/a> investigation<\/a> by Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates revealed they hired a security firm run by former military intelligence agents to spy on pro-Palestinian student demonstrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates reported they have \u201cuncovered evidence that Horus Security Consultancy Limited trawled through student social media<\/a> feeds and conducted secret counterterror threat assessments on behalf of some of Britain\u2019s most elite institutions,\u201d including the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The investigation found that Horus has been paid $594,000 by the universities since 2022, and it has been asked to monitor targets ranging from a Palestinian academic giving a guest lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University to entire groups of pro-Palestinian organizations at the University of Bristol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the universities implicated in the investigation declined comment. Imperial College London, however, denied that it paid Horus to spy on its students, and said it merely wanted to \u201chelp identify potential security risks to its community, which might include protest<\/a> activity within the vicinity of its campuses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This rationale failed to satisfy critics, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gina Romero, the United Nations<\/a> special rapporteur for freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, told Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates that \u201cthe use of AI to harvest and analyze student data under the guise of open-source intelligence raises profound legal concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Romero expressed particular concern that Horus is not accountable to any public scrutiny, and that students have no way to know how the data collected from them will be used in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lizzie Hobbs, a PhD student at the London School of Economics who has taken part in pro-Palestinian protests<\/a>, said it was \u201cdeeply scary\u201d to see universities invest money in surveilling their own students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe knew surveillance was happening by the university,\u201d she said, \u201cbut it is shocking to see how systematized it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jo Grady, general secretary for the University and College Union, slammed the schools\u2019 \u201cshameful\u201d actions and said they had \u201cwasted hundreds of thousands of pounds spying on their own students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journalist Mushahid Hussain Sayed also\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0the universities\u2019 actions as \u201cshameful,\u201d adding that they discriminated \u201cagainst students and academics on the basis of their peaceful political beliefs\/activism in support of\u00a0Palestine<\/a>\u00a0and against Israel!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Protesters from the student block prepare to march along the Embankment holding signs and a giant flag during a protest on October 11, 2025 in London, England. \u00a0(Photo by Martin Pope\/Getty Images) \u201cWe knew surveillance was happening by the university, but it is shocking to see how systematized it is,\u201d… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47818,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47817\/revisions\/47818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}