Written by Shreya Gupta
An investigation led by Al Jazeera and Liberty Investigates has revealed that twelve British universities, including LSE, have been paying a private security firm to monitor campus Pro-Palestinian activity since 2022.
The firm, Horus Security Consultancy, was founded by former military intelligence officials and has received at least £440,000 from universities since 2022. It compiled daily social media “encampment updates” and sold them to universities for £900 a month.
Documents obtained via a Freedom of Information request to LSE reveal that Lizzie Hobbs, a pro-Gaza PhD student involved in campus protests, had her social media posts tracked by Horus. Her flagged post on X, stating “We may have been evicted, but we are more powerful and organised as a collective than we have ever been!” was sent to LSE’s security team as a briefing in June 2024. Hobbs said she only learned of the monitoring when contacted by journalists, describing it as “deeply scary.”
Investigators also obtained an internal LSE email in which a security officer forwarded the Horus briefing with the comment: “Apparently we were incredibly heavy-handed on the protesters!!” LSE did not respond to requests for comment from Al Jazeera or Liberty Investigates.
The protests had centred on demands for LSE to divest from Israel-affiliated companies. The university had obtained a legal order to evict protesters from what students described as a non-violent building occupation, while LSE characterised the protest as threatening and abusive.
When asked to comment, the LSE Students for Justice in Palestine Society told the Beaver:
“LSE has spent years telling us that it would be financially irresponsible to divest from genocide and yet, somehow, there was money to pay a private intelligence firm thousands of pounds to watch our members’ Instagram stories, and hire lawyers to evict our encampment. If LSE can find the budget to surveil students who are protesting a genocide, it can find the budget to examine—and end—its financial relationships with companies that are profiting from one. We will not be deterred, we will continue to organise, we will continue to protest, and we continue to demand that the LSE ends the BP professorship, divests from BP and cuts all ties to BP.”
The UN Special Rapporteur for freedom of peaceful assembly said the surveillance had contributed to a “state of terror” among UK student activists, with many experiencing psychological trauma and leaving activism altogether. Horus also did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Other institutions named include the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, UCL, King’s College London, Bristol, Sheffield, Leicester, Nottingham and Cardiff Metropolitan.
An LSE spokesperson said:
“LSE has not ‘been paying a private security firm to monitor campus Pro-Palestinian activity.’
Wanting to understand how the protests had been reported on and understood publicly, and along with many other universities, two years ago LSE employed a company to provide a round-up of news and publicly available commentary on the encampments across the UK. No individual was targeted or monitored.
Freedom of speech and expression are of the utmost importance to LSE and underpin everything we do. Our Code of Practice on Free Speech sets out how we deliver our duties with respect to these freedoms, and we have consistently and vigorously defended the rights and freedoms of our students, staff, and visitors—including in connection with the numerous protests about Gaza, Israel, and issues of divestment that have taken place on our campus in recent years.”
