UCL was found to be among twelve top universities who paid Horus Security Consultancy Limited, a private security firm, to “trawl through student social media feeds and conduct secret counter-terror threat assessments”, Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates have revealed.
Al Jazeera English claims that students and academics, ranging from a Palestinian academic invited to give a lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University to a PhD student at LSE, were “monitored” by Horus.
Liberty Investigates details how the firm investigated lecturers and students’ personal details, including social media use, which were then turned into reports that were given to the University.
Horus was founded in 2006 in Oxford and boasts “a global network of specialist expertise providing high quality security consultancy and intelligence services to clients across a wide range of sectors.”
They offer services including strategic threat assessments, open-source monitoring, and 24/7 threat alerts to their clients.
According to Al Jazeera English, the firm has been paid at least £440,000 by universities since 2022.
While there were no specific details as to who at UCL was monitored, FOI findings have shown that UCL did pay Horus for such services.
Other elite institutions, such as the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, KCL, and LSE also paid for these services
It is understood that there is no suggestion this activity is illegal.
A UCL spokesperson said:
“Like many universities, UCL uses specialist services to help us understand potential risks to our campuses and community.
“This information, which is publicly available, is used to support operational planning and to help ensure the safety and security of our staff, students and visitors.
“We do not use such services to monitor individuals, lawful student protest or peaceful expression; we view the right to protest, debate and challenge ideas as fundamental to freedom of speech, and we are committed to ensuring our students and staff can express their views in a lawful and safe way.”