Twelve UK universities paid more than £440,000 to a private company run by a former military intelligence officer to spy on student protesters and academics, including those who supported Palestine, a joint investigation has revealed Al Jazeera English and Freedom Investigations has been revealed.An investigation following Freedom of Information requests to more than 150 universities found that Horus Security Consultancy Limited collected information from student social media and conducted counter-terrorism threat assessments on behalf of a number of institutions. The investigation found that the company received at least £443,943 in remuneration between January 2022 and March 2025.Universities using the company’s services include Oxford University, Imperial College London, University College London, King’s College London, Sheffield University, Leicester University, Nottingham University and Cardiff Metropolitan University. There was no indication that the activity was illegal.
Monitoring of students and academics
According to the documents reviewed Al Jazeera English and free investigationThe firm tracked a range of individuals, including a Palestinian academic invited to speak at Manchester Metropolitan University and a pro-Gaza PhD student at the London School of Economics.In one case, internal emails show that the University of Bristol provided Horus with a list of student protest groups for October 2024 and requested an alert on their activities. The groups include pro-Palestinian and animal rights activists.Seven universities declined to share details of the briefs they received, citing confidentiality or commercial sensitivity, even though the information was based on publicly available data.
Case 1: LSE student flagged in report
One of the individuals identified in the investigation is Lizzie Hobbs, a PhD student at the London School of Economics. A briefing sent to the university’s security team on June 18, 2024 included a social media post she had written a day earlier.Her post, along with thousands of others, forms part of Horus’ daily “camp updates” and is sold to universities for £900 a month.Hobbs said she only became aware of this after she was contacted. Al Jazeera. “We knew the university was conducting surveillance, but what was shocking was how systematic it was,” she said. She added that it was “very scary” to see how much universities are willing to spend on such surveillance.
Case 2: Academic subject receives anti-terrorism assessment
In another case, Palestinian-American academic Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi underwent a counter-terrorism “threat assessment” before a lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2023.Obtained documents free investigation It shows the university asked Horus on April 6, 2023, to evaluate the 70-year-old scholar before she was scheduled to speak. The request was made under obligations relating to the UK’s Prevent programme, which requires universities to assess the risks associated with external speakers.Abdul Hadi reacts to findings Al Jazeera: “You’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty…but they actually assumed guilt and started investigating me because of my scholarship.” She added: “What should I be learning and teaching to avoid this kind of unwarranted, unfair and unjust scrutiny and surveillance?”The university later allowed the event to go ahead in the presence of security personnel, saying there was no evidence she had links to banned groups and that any risk of protest was unlikely to be violent.
Use of University Defense Services
Several universities defended their use of outside intelligence services. The University of Sheffield said it used such tools to “scan” potential issues such as mass protests, adding that suggestions it was an attempt to deter radicalization was “incorrect”.Imperial College London said it does not spy on students and uses Horus to “help identify potential security risks in its community”, adding that the information used comes from the public domain.
Concerns about surveillance and data use
Gina Romero, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedoms of peaceful assembly and association, expressed concern about the findings. “The use of artificial intelligence to collect and analyze student data under the guise of open source intelligence raises profound legal concerns,” she told us Al Jazeera.She warned that the practice could collect vast amounts of data without public oversight and could be used in ways that individuals could not anticipate.Joe Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, also criticized the approach. she told Al Jazeera It is “shameful” that universities have “wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds spying on their own students”.Romero further described the situation as leading to a “state of terror” among some student activists. “Most of the students I work with are experiencing trauma, mental exhaustion and burnout…and many of them have given up on activism altogether,” she said.
Company background and response
Horus was founded in 2006 by former Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Whiteley within the University of Oxford’s security team. The group’s leadership includes Colonel Tim Collins, who has publicly linked pro-Gaza protests to foreign influence campaigns and called for tougher action against demonstrators.Despite multiple requests for comment Al Jazeera English The company did not respond in late March and early April. Horus says on its website that it follows “the strictest ethical rules” and operates in a legally compliant manner.
