Government monitoring X for people who publicly criticise Prevent

25th September 2026

(London, 25 September 2026) Today, Rights & Security International (RSI) released documents showing that the Prevent Standards and Compliance Unit (StaCU) – a body linked to the Home Office – has been gathering information about people and organisations who publicly criticise the Prevent counter-extremism scheme on platforms such as X and Reddit.

‘It is shocking that the government has been trawling X and Reddit to find out who has been critiquing Prevent – and then storing that information,’ said Jacob Smith, Freedom of Expression and Belief Team Leader at RSI. ‘You should be able to criticise government policy without getting put on a list.’

In the year March 2024 to February 2025, StaCU made 77 ‘observations’ about people critical of Prevent, most of which came from the social media website X (formerly Twitter). The ‘observations’ also included articles from mainstream media outlets, such as the Guardian and the Telegraph. Many of the collected posts were from individuals, but some were also from or about organisations, including Hope Not Hate, Maslaha and the Open Rights Group.

It is unclear to RSI how the StaCU found these ‘observations’ and whether it used any automated tools to do so.

StaCU collates this information as ‘open-source complaints’ about Prevent, which it then stores internally. However, it is unclear to RSI what the StaCU then does with that information, apart from ‘attempt[ing] to independently verify claims’. As with other information about people that the government collects in relation to Prevent, RSI is concerned about what the government may be doing with these posts, including with whom it may be sharing the information.

The Home Office disclosed this information to RSI in response to a freedom-of-information request. It had initially refused the request, but disclosed the information following RSI’s successful appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Smith concluded, ‘It’s a stark reminder that, in the government’s eyes, anything you share online is fair game and could go into a file forever.’

ENDS