Did UK universities pay to ‘spy’ on pro‑Palestine students? — The Take

[0:00] Today, did British universities pay to spy on pro-Palestine students? [0:06] To think that, you know, universities were paying an external company to keep track of [0:12] things that, you know, me and my peers might have been posting on social media, [0:16] really wasn't within my kind of, you know, imagination at that time. [0:21] A new investigation uncovers the limits to organizing for Palestine on UK campuses. [0:26] I'm Malika Bilal and this is The Take. [0:28] Hey everyone, we know that as an audience, there's a lot of news that you're trying to [0:39] keep track of. [0:40] And at The Take, we're doing our best to cover it all. [0:44] So leave us a comment about what stories you're keeping an eye out for and what you want to [0:49] see on your feed. [0:50] We really do take the time to read each and every one. [0:54] Now, here's the show. [0:58] I'm Aaron Waller-Walker. [1:00] I'm a reporter at Liberty Investigates and a Bertha Challenge Fellow. [1:03] And Liberty Investigates is a small team of journalists in the UK focused on exposing [1:07] injustices. [1:08] I'm currently in Bristol, one of the universities that featured in our report, but I'm normally [1:12] based in London. [1:12] Well, Aaron, welcome to The Take. [1:16] We are sitting down together today because you recently broke the kind of news that will [1:21] make a person stop scrolling. [1:23] That is literally what happened to me this week, thumb in midair, when I saw this headline [1:29] on Al Jazeera.com. [1:31] British University's paid security firm to spy on pro-Palestine students. [1:37] Tell me about the investigation that led to that headline and what you found. [1:41] So we've been looking into the repression of protesters in the UK since the encampment [1:47] movement started in 2024. [1:49] When video emerged of students in the US in handcuffs and lecturers also facing all sorts [1:56] of issues, we began to look into what sorts of things might be happening in the UK that [2:02] were going on behind the scenes. [2:03] So I started by submitting freedom of information requests to all of the UK's 150 plus universities, [2:11] asking for things like their correspondence with the police, discussing pro-Palestinian [2:15] protest activity, and also their conversations with each other. [2:20] And that unearthed for me the existence of this membership body that exists between campus [2:25] security teams in the UK, where they kind of discuss and share advice on how to manage [2:31] protest activity. [2:32] And I noticed that they're sponsored by a particular company called Horus, which specializes [2:37] in providing intelligence. [2:38] So then I was curious and then submitted another round of freedom of information requests to [2:43] all of the UK's universities, asking how much have they paid private intelligence companies [2:49] to provide intelligence on protest activity over the last few years. [2:53] And what came back was that 12 British universities have been paying a security firm set up by former [3:01] military intelligence officials to monitor the social media of students and staff, some of [3:07] whom have expressed solidarity with Palestine. [3:11] Wow. [3:11] Okay. [3:12] All right. [3:12] Wow. [3:13] So provide intelligence. [3:16] Did you ever think that you would need to use those words when talking about some of [3:19] these elite universities in the UK? [3:22] No, I think that, you know, university is a place where people go to, students go to kind [3:29] of engage in discussions. [3:32] For me, it was like a really profound experience for me, you know, finding out about, I studied [3:37] politics about a decade ago in the UK. [3:41] And yeah, it really opened my eyes to the world, getting involved in all elements of kind of student [3:45] activism. [3:46] And to think that, you know, universities were paying an external company to, [3:51] keep track of things that, you know, me and my peers might have been posting on social [3:56] media, really wasn't within my kind of, you know, imagination at that time. [4:00] So Liberty Investigates published this in partnership with Al Jazeera. [4:08] And as you mentioned, this probe into what and who Horace is and what their affiliation [4:15] is with these universities is a year in the making. [4:20] So tell us what you found about the company at the center of this investigation. [4:25] What is Horace? [4:26] So Horace was founded in 2006 in Oxford. [4:32] It began life as a project with Oxford University's security team. [4:37] And it was set up by Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Whiteley, who, according to his website, has [4:42] a 23 year long career in military intelligence and counterintelligence operations across the [4:49] world. [4:49] More recently, in 2020, it was joined by Colonel Tim Collins, who is quite famous for his role [4:58] in the Iraq war, who recently has made some public statements around pro-Palestine activism. [5:04] Statements like what? [5:06] So recently he's made some kind of public statements around pro-Palestine protest activity. [5:12] Um, that includes attributing the size and scale of protests in the West to a Russian-Iranian-orchestrated [5:20] media campaign, also calling for, uh, protesters who misbehaved to be deported. [5:25] Okay. [5:27] So we have a colonel who is known for his role in the Iraq war, who's now heading this organization? [5:39] He's listed on the website as one of four senior leaders of Horace's parent company, [5:46] um, Horace Global. [5:48] He's listed on the website as one of four senior leaders whose expertise is integral [5:56] to kind of the work that it provides on behalf of its clients, which includes universities. [6:01] Okay. [6:01] So what kind of work was Horace doing for these universities? [6:06] It's been tricky to find out exactly the nature of work that it's been doing most of [6:10] the universities that I requested information from have been like unwilling to share a lot [6:16] of that detail. [6:17] Um, but from three universities, uh, we have been able to kind of get some insight into what's [6:23] happening. [6:24] So, um, one university, the London School of Economics receives regular encampment briefings [6:31] from Horace. [6:32] Wow. [6:33] Documents that, uh, it's been receiving since the encampment movement started in May, 2024, [6:38] um, where, um, the kind of Instagram posts and ex posts of, uh, students across the country [6:46] who'd set up encampments are kind of compiled into a digest, uh, along with kind of notifications [6:53] about what protests might be coming up. [6:56] Another type of service that they've been providing are background checks on external [7:00] speakers in relation to, um, what's known as the prevent duty in the UK, which is, um, kind [7:07] of part of our counter-terror laws here. [7:09] If you contact us early, and unless you want us to, we won't tell the person you called [7:14] us. [7:15] Every year we support many people move away from the path towards violent extremism. [7:21] One aspect of that is that, uh, universities have to have an obligation to kind of ensure [7:27] that any speakers that are kind of invited onto campus don't express extremist views or [7:33] views that would risk drawing people into extremism. Um, so one university, Manchester [7:38] Metropolitan, um, commissioned for us to conduct a background check on a American-Palestinian [7:44] speaker, Rabab Abdelhadi, who was affected and involved kind of trawling her social media [7:50] presence, um, assessing kind of various allegations made against her. I reached out to her, um, to [7:58] inform her of what happened. And she was, you know, really shocked and appalled to have been subject [8:04] to this level of scrutiny. [8:05] Because she didn't, she didn't know until you reached out to her. [8:10] Exactly. She'd been invited to give a lecture to students at the university in memory of a, [8:16] um, student called Tom Herndl, who was at Manchester Metropolitan University and was shot and killed by [8:24] Israeli sniper in 2003, uh, in Gaza. She accepted that opportunity and, you know, felt that it was an honor to [8:34] speak on behalf of anyone that gives their life in solidarity with Palestine. Um, but she didn't [8:41] have any concept that in doing so, um, the university would then commission this company to conduct a [8:49] background check on her. [8:49] Well, how personal did this get then? Who else did you find was being monitored and how closely? [8:57] Yes. So we also spoke to a student at LSE, um, Lizzie Hobbs, whose tweet, um, was flagged in a briefing sent to [9:08] her university's campus security team at LSE. They were, if I remember correctly, one of the kind of first [9:16] encampments in the UK to have faced legal action from their university. And, uh, Lizzie tweeted about it. [9:23] What did she say? What did she write? [9:26] Lizzie tweeted that we may have been evicted, but we're more powerful and organized as a collective [9:30] than we've ever been. Um, so that was one of thousands of tweets that has been compiled into [9:38] daily encampment updates and sold to universities for around £900 a month. In total, I found that, [9:46] universities had spent over £400,000, um, on Horace's services since 2022. [9:53] Wow. That brings me to my next question and that it must have been a pretty awkward phone call because [10:02] I can't imagine here you are, Aaron, you're breaking this news to us for this investigation. [10:06] But before you published it, you've had to break the news to the people who you found were part of [10:12] these reports. What was Lizzie's reaction? What was that phone call like? [10:17] Her reaction was a mixture of kind of shock, shock at the fact that the university was paying an external [10:23] company for this information and also how systematized it was that not just her university [10:29] was doing it, but potentially many others for £900 a month. Um, as well as a kind of lack of surprise, [10:37] um, as a lot of student protesters, you know, are aware that, um, they're being watched and they've [10:43] been taking measures to try and, you know, protect themselves against that. [10:46] I know Horace didn't respond to your requests for comment for the piece, but on their website, [10:53] they say they operate with strong ethics and within the law, which of course is the key thing within [10:58] the law. So based on your reporting, how does that hold up? [11:02] So the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Assembly and Association, Gina Romero, um, said that, [11:12] you know, the use of, um, artificial intelligence to kind of gather open source information does raise [11:19] profound legal concerns in the sense that, um, you know, AI can be used to gather disproportionate [11:24] amounts of evidence on students, um, by companies which, you know, are not subject to public scrutiny. [11:31] And we know that Horace has been gathering open source information and, uh, based on its website, [11:36] it's been, um, integrating AI into its kind of, uh, operations, but there's still more to be kind [11:43] of uncovered in terms of how, um, artificial intelligence is used specifically in relation [11:48] to the intelligence that it gathers for universities. Uh, that was one of the questions that, um, I asked [11:54] Horace in, uh, approaching them for comment, um, which they unfortunately didn't respond to. [11:59] What I'm wondering is why did all these universities choose Horace in the first place? What's the link? [12:07] In terms of, you know, what about Horace appeals to universities, we approached all the universities [12:15] mentioned in the article, all 12 of them, for a comment to ask them about, you know, um, why they [12:20] used Horace's services. And many of them also didn't reply. So, um, that includes the University of [12:27] Oxford, University College London, King's College London. Those that did reply, they generally say [12:34] that they rely on Horace's services to kind of horizon scan, as they call it. Um, so they want to [12:41] have advance notice of any issues that might have kind of security, um, kind of consequence for their [12:47] campus. They all generally say that they, um, uphold freedom of speech and that their kind of use of [12:54] Horace's services isn't intended to discourage activism and that they're not asking Horace to [13:01] brief particular individuals, um, rather provide intelligence on, uh, you know, potential security [13:10] issues such as protest activity, um, which might as a result kind of uncover information about students. [13:16] So, Erin, you touched on this earlier, but this reporting came out of a larger investigation [13:22] you've been doing into how universities in the UK handled the pro-Palestine campus protests and the [13:28] encampments that began in 2024. And I wonder now looking back, overall, how would you say universities [13:38] handle those? Looking back now, I think that, um, it's a mixed picture. Uh, what we at Liberty [13:47] Investigates have, like, uncovered, however, are some really sort of concerning examples of [13:52] protests being cracked down on. You know, um, some of our findings include how between October [13:59] 2023 and March 2025, um, one in four UK universities have launched disciplinary action, um, [14:06] against students and staff in connection with their pro-Palestine activism. We've also found cases of, [14:11] um, well, a case of students being convicted of trespass after occupying their own university [14:18] building. We've generally seen, um, what the UK's, uh, kind of largest union, um, representing, [14:25] uh, teaching staff and academics has described as a worsening crackdown on student protest activity in [14:31] the UK. Well, finally, Erin, now you have students who might read your piece and assume, rightly, [14:39] as some of the ones you talk to, that their posts are being watched. What would you tell students? [14:45] I would tell students that if you, you know, have read this article and you're concerned about, [14:50] um, you know, that you may have been affected, you know, since publishing the story, um, my inbox has [14:55] been inundated with emails from academics, students at a number of universities who, yeah, are really [15:03] concerned about what's happened and they're desperate to find out more. They want to know, you know, [15:07] Wow. Um, have they been affected and how do they find out? And, um, we've launched a project called [15:15] the Campus Accountability Mapping Project or CAMP. Um, you can find it on campusprotest.org.uk [15:21] and on that website, we've got, um, some template forms which students or staff members can submit to [15:27] their university to request all the information that's held about them. That's how, um, I was able to [15:34] help the Palestinian American academic Rabab Abdul Hadi to obtain a copy of the Horus report, um, that [15:42] was done in relation to her and, um, other people were able to do the same by visiting the website and [15:48] completing the same form and submitting it to the university. Um, so the first thing is if you want [15:54] to kind of stand up and do activism, it's important to know what the potential risks are. And, um, one way [16:00] to unearth that is by requesting all your data from your university. Hmm. Um, Aaron, love an action item. [16:11] Thank you for your reporting and for your advice on what to do. People find themselves in the midst [16:16] of it as well. Uh, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.