If you are a British citizen and you criticize a government program online, that criticism can be collected and stored by a government-linked body.
At least that seems to be the upshot of the actions of the Prevent Standards and Compliance Unit (StaCU), “a body linked to the Home Office," that has been keeping “observations” of those who speak against the government’s Prevent counter-extremism program on the internet.
The “evidence” of this comes from documents the group Rights & Security International (RSI) obtained under freedom of information law.
The group has now revealed that in the year from March 2024 to February 2025, StaCU made 77 “observations” of people who were critical of the program online – and that most of these “observations” came from X, with some from Reddit. Mainstream media articles were also included, as were posts from or about several organizations, including Hope Not Hate, Maslaha, and the Open Rights Group.
The “observations” are filed as “open-source complaints” and stored internally by StaCU. RSI is unsure what happens to this data next, and who the government may be sharing it with. What is known is that the process involves “attempting to independently verify claims.”
As RSI’s Freedom of Expression and Belief Team Leader Jacob Smith put it, “You should be able to criticize government policy without getting put on a list.”
Smith also noted that the fact that the government “has been trawling X and Reddit to find out who has been critiquing Prevent” should serve as “a stark reminder that, in the government’s eyes, anything you share online is fair game and could go into a file forever.”
The Home Office tried to keep this secret and refused to hand over the documents at first, but RSI won an appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office, and the documents were released.
As RSI noted, it is unclear if any automated tools were used to find the posts, and if not, how the unit “found” them, or what it does with the data it collects.
The case is not the first time Prevent has been in the news for its controversial nature and the way it is implemented, but it is a stark reminder that the British government has no problem treating criticism of its policies as potentially dangerous.
