Universities paid ex-military spy firm to target their students

Pro-Palestine students have hit back at elite universities that paid a military intelligence firm hundreds of thousands of pounds to spy on them. The angry students blasted the unis for undermining their right to free speech — and their right to organise against Israeli genocide.

A joint Al Jazeera/Liberty Investigates report published on 21 April exposed 12 universities for having students spied on. Horus Security made a small fortune by spying on Palestine solidarity activists and anti-genocide academics.

Horus CEO Jonathon Whiteley served in the British Army’s Intelligence Corps. Tim Collins, a major Horus shareholder, is an ex-special forces colonel. Collins is also a founding signatory of the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a hard-right ‘thinktank’. You can read the full details in our piece from 21 April here.

Now students from University College London (UCL) — an elite university targeted by the spy operation — have hit back. UCL Action for Palestine told the Canary they had been subject to an “egregious violation”:

We have completely lost trust in our university. This is an egregious violation of UCL’s duty of care to its students, and it infringes not only on our right to protest but also further exposes UCL as an institution that cares more about the well-being of its ties to an apartheid regime than about its own students.

The group even slammed UCL’s marketing schtick about creating “change-makers”:

While UCL supposedly nurtures “change-makers”, enacting “change” at UCL is actively surveilled and discouraged. Perhaps this is by design. After all, UCL was founded on the principles of Jeremy Bentham – designer of the panopticon.

They also said their commitment to opposing Israeli genocide was, if anything, stronger because of UCL’s assault on their rights:

We know that it is our moral obligation to stand against genocide and this will not deter us. If anything, this shows that our movement is working, that they are scared of us, and that we should carry on steadfast.

Universities spying on their students ‘is beyond chilling’

The Canary asked London School of Economics (LSE) Students for Justice For Palestine (SJP) group how they felt about having their democratic rights infringed upon by their university:

Universities should be championing the freedoms of expression and assembly. They should be protecting their students at all costs. They could have engaged meaningfully with the simple demand of a global student movement – to do their small bit in preventing a genocide.

Instead, they hired a private firm led by ex-military intelligence officers to spy and gather data on their own students? It is beyond chilling.

We asked if the revelations made them afraid to be politically active in the future. LSE SJP said it was “deeply concerning” that universities would “spy on their students”:

but student organisers won’t be intimidated. The encampments showed us that. Students have, and always will be, at the forefront of radical demands for social and political change.

But added that the universities and their “privately hired spies” had underestimated:

how seriously student encampments across the country took matters of security. It was rooted in care, community and collective safety.

Adding:

Universities on the other hand, no doubt informed by some of this spying, suspended and disciplined their students, leveraged the full force [of the] law against them in court cases and evictions, and even called the police onto campuses.

They have a lot to answer for.

The operation used online artificial intelligence (AI) espionage methods and has netted the firm at least £440,000 ($594,000) since 2022. As we reported, the universities involved generally tried to argue that their spy operations were a matter of safety and security. But it seems that the groups they targeted aren’t buying that explanation.

Featured image via the Canary