A joint investigation by Al Jazeera English and Liberty Investigates has revealed that twelve British universities, including Oxford, Imperial College London, and the London School of Economics (LSE), paid a private intelligence firm run by former military officials to monitor pro-Palestinian student protesters and academics. Horus Security Consultancy, founded by a former British army lieutenant-colonel, was paid at least £440,000 since 2022 to trawl student social media accounts and produce counter-terror threat assessments, with monthly encampment monitoring reports sold to institutions for £900 each. The UN special rapporteur for freedom of peaceful assembly warned the practice raises "profound legal concerns," while the UK's largest lecturers' union condemned the universities for spending public funds to surveil their own students.