A joint investigative journalism investigation by Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates has ignited fierce public and political backlash across the United Kingdom, after uncovering that 12 leading British higher education institutions have contracted a private intelligence firm led by former military intelligence officials to monitor pro-Palestine student protesters and academic staff. Since 2022, the 12 universities – including globally renowned institutions such as the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London and King’s College London, alongside the University of Sheffield, University of Leicester, University of Nottingham, and Cardiff Metropolitan University – have paid Horus Security Consultancy Limited at least £440,000 (equivalent to roughly $594,000) for the surveillance work. The firm, which brands itself as a “leading intelligence” provider, was tasked with scanning public and private social media accounts of campus community members to track expressions of solidarity with Palestine, as well as compiling purported counter-terrorism threat assessments for the institutions. The investigation also documented specific cases of targeted surveillance: a 70-year-old Palestinian scholar, Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi, who was invited to deliver a guest lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2023, was placed under monitoring by Horus agents, alongside a pro-Palestine PhD candidate studying at the London School of Economics. Speaking out about the experience, Abdulhadi condemned the arbitrary surveillance as a fundamental violation of academic freedom and due process. “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. Abdulhadi further questioned what scholars must self-censor in their research and teaching to avoid what she called “this unwarranted, unfair and unjust scrutiny and surveillance.” Founded in 2006 as an internal project within the University of Oxford’s own campus security department, Horus is currently overseen by Colonel Tim Collins, who has held the role of director at the firm’s parent company since 2020. Collins has a well-documented history of controversial public positions: he has publicly called for the deportation of non-British citizens who participate in what he labels “misbehaving” protests, and has repeatedly claimed that pro-Palestine demonstrations across the UK are the product of a “Russian/Iranian orchestrated media campaign.” Multiple human rights and international experts have decried the surveillance program as a dangerous attack on civil liberties. Gina Romero, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for freedom of peaceful assembly and association, warned that the use of artificial intelligence by private firms to harvest and analyze personal student data raises “profound legal concerns” and has created a “state of terror” among student activists who wish to exercise their right to peaceful protest. Orlaith Roe, public affairs and communications officer at the UK-based International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), described the revelations as deeply alarming. “It is deeply frightening that some of the UK’s most respected universities have paid a private firm run by former military intelligence officials to surveil their own students and academics, particularly those in the pro-Palestine movement,” Roe said. She added that the UN special rapporteur’s characterization of the surveillance as creating a “state of terror” should be a urgent wake-up call for anyone who defends the rights to free speech and peaceful assembly in the UK. “This is not an isolated incident, but part of a troubling pattern of targeted monitoring of dissent in the UK – and without urgent scrutiny, it will not be the last,” Roe warned. Longtime UK MP and former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who leads the Your Party political grouping, echoed these criticisms, arguing that the surveillance program is the latest sign of the UK sliding toward authoritarian surveillance policies. “Britain is becoming a surveillance state,” Corbyn told Middle East Eye. “This is yet another disturbing example of an increasingly draconian crackdown on Palestinian solidarity. Universities are meant to encourage students to learn, not intimidate them into silence.” As of the publication of the investigation, neither Horus Security Consultancy nor most of the universities named in the report have responded to multiple requests for comment from journalists. On its official website, Horus claims it adheres to “the strongest ethics in whatever we do, and are fully transparent and legally compliant in whatever territory we operate in.”
Corbyn slams ‘surveillance state’ after UK universities pay firm to spy on pro-Palestine students
