UK Logged 77 Posts Criticizing Prevent. Then Hid the List for a Year.

Britain's Standards and Compliance Unit (StaCU) — the Home Office–linked body sold as a Prevent complaint desk — spent a year scanning X and Reddit for people who criticized the counter-terror programme itself. Between March 2024 and February 2025 it logged 77 "observations." Ordinary users. Campaign groups. Even a Campaign Against Antisemitism post that never named Prevent.

The Home Office fought Freedom of Information release for more than a year. Rights & Security International only got the list after an Information Commissioner appeal. Jacob Smith: "You should be allowed to criticise government policy without being put on a list."

StaCU verified about 10% of the posts. Its parent sometimes replied in public inviting a "formal complaint" — without saying the user's feed was already filed. Nobody outside the unit can say who else sees the file, how long it is kept, or whether police and platforms get a copy.

Prevent was sold as safeguarding. Cataloguing dissent about Prevent is surveillance with a polite name. Speech about state power is not an open-source complaint for the state to warehouse.

Sources: https://metro.co.uk/2026/09/25/social-media-users-end-government-list-speaking-prevent-29649220/ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-officials-are-keeping-list-brits-who-question-government-policy https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-and-compliance-unit-annual-report-2024-to-2025/standards-and-compliance-unit-annual-report-2024-to-2025