Eleven UK rights organisations call on Home Office to investigate data handling practices for ‘Prevent’ counter-extremism programme

Signatories of letter led by Rights & Security International include Amnesty International, Liberty, Muslim Council of Britain

London, 1 March  February 2024 – A group of eleven organisations spearheaded by Rights & Security International – including Amnesty International, Liberty and the Muslim Council of Britain – organizations has issued an open letter today calling on the Home Secretary to investigate the apparently haphazard collection, sharing and storage of data about the race of people who are referred to the controversial 'Prevent' counter-extremism programme. The letter highlights information that RSI obtained following a freedom of information request, revealing that police in England and Wales are collecting data about people’s race in some, but only a minority, of cases – making the monitoring of potential discrimination impossible.

As reported by the Guardian on 6 February, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) keeps a database of Prevent referrals but did not have – or could not easily identify – data about the person’s race in 33,116 out of 51,204 referrals between 2015 and 2023. This gap has occurred in spite of the government’s statement in a 2011 equality impact assessment that it would collect data to monitor potential racial or religious discrimination under Prevent.

UK data protection law treats information about a person’s race as especially sensitive and often requires special safeguards for it.

‘This letter shows that a broad range of groups acting in the name of racial justice, digital rights and the rights of Muslims in the UK, among others, are disturbed by this apparently messy collection of data about people’s race and ready to push for change,’ said Sarah St Vincent, Executive Director of RSI. ‘The question of when and why police are gathering – or not gathering – information about a sensitive aspect of people’s identities such as race or religion is a very serious one.’

In the letter, the organisations demand a thorough investigation into these seemingly hit-or-miss data collection practices and further urge the Home Secretary to review Prevent's compliance with equality and data protection laws, along with the Human Rights Act 1998.

The groups expressed the view that ‘Prevent inherently violates human rights, as it entails the monitoring of – and creation of large quantities of police files recording – people’s beliefs, opinions and lawful expression.’ They added, ‘However, as long as Prevent exists, it is not open to the government … to collect sensitive data inaccurately, without justification or on an inconsistent basis.’

‘Our call to the Home Secretary is clear: investigate and rectify these data handling practices, and carry out an evidence-based review of whether activities under Prevent are resulting in discrimination. It is not acceptable that the last equality impact assessment for Prevent – a controversial programme that always results in a police record – appears to have taken place more than a decade ago.’

RSI is exploring further measures to pursue these issues.

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For further inquiries, please contact Jacob Smith (jsmith@rightsandsecurity.org).