University of Oxford paid private firm for ‘intelligence’ on student protest

The University of Oxford has been named as one of twelve UK universities that paid a private intelligence consultancy run by former military intelligence officials to monitor student activism and protest movements, in a joint investigation by Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates. 

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests sent to more than 150 universities across the UK have revealed that Horus Security Consultancy Limited was employed by twelve universities to conduct covert counter-terror threat assessments on students involved in protest movements, particularly pro-Palestine activism.

It is alleged that the firm was contracted by universities to collect and analyse open-source data, which included student social media feeds, and to compile intelligence reports on protest activity. The investigation discloses that the firm has received at least £440,000 from universities between January 2022 and March 2025. 

The other universities that paid Horus to monitor protest activity include Imperial College London, King’s College London, University College London, the University of Bristol, the University of Nottingham, and the University of Sheffield. There is no indication, the report specifies, that the purported surveillance is illegal. 

This follows a previous investigation, conducted jointly by Liberty Investigates and Sky News last year, which examined the responses of a range of UK universities to pro-Palestine student activism. The University of Oxford refused to comply with the FOI request. However, the cache of emails disclosed by the FOI request to Oxford Brookes University revealed correspondence, forwarded to Oxford Brookes, between the University of Oxford and Horus Security regarding an Oxford Palestine Solidarity Campaign march. 

A spokesperson for the University told Cherwell: “Allegations of surveillance are inaccurate. External security consultants are used solely to carry out safety risk assessments for public events and known protests – not to monitor individuals or political activity.”

An Oxford student involved in the 2024 protest action for Palestine told Cherwell: “It is disgusting but unfortunately unsurprising to learn that the University prioritised the digital surveillance of its own students over a serious institutional reckoning with its financial support for Israeli apartheid and genocide.

“Oxford University were, in Trinity term 2024, confronted with a movement that commanded widespread support among students and staff. Rather than engage meaningfully with the popular movement for divestment, they chose to contribute to the stifling of protest action for Palestine.”

Horus Security was founded in Oxford in 2006 by former British Army intelligence officer Jonathan Whiteley, as a project within the University of Oxford’s security team. According to its website, Horus provides security screening to “some of the most highly regarded, high-profile organisations in the world”, enabling them “not only to conduct pre-hire checks, but also to protect against insider threats, saving their organisations from disruption and from future and current employee risks”.

The director of the firm’s parent company, Horus Global, is the former Colonel Tim Collins, who helped to found the right-wing, pro-Israel thinktank, the Henry Jackson Society. In recent years, he has called for non-British protestors for Palestine to be deported from the UK.