King’s College London admits monitoring student emails

King’s College London (KCL) has revealed it may monitor student emails as part of its compliance with a government counter-terrorism strategy known as Prevent, aimed at tackling terrorism at its earliest stages.

Students were informed of the development via KCL’s email login page, wherein it was warned that the contents of their emails were subject to being “monitored and recorded” for the sake of locating and preventing terrorist threats.

Multiple sources responded with complaints to this story, including the KCL Student’s Union, who commented: “Students who have not committed any crimes are being treated as suspects”.

The organisation responsible for the implementation of Prevent within British universities is known as the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), whose representatives claim that the actions of KCL are uniform and consistent with those of other universities around the country.

Warwick university told the Boar that it does not monitor student emails as part of its compliance with Prevent.

KCL has responded to criticism, claiming that the use of their system involves “express consent” to having their personal emails under surveillance. They also specified that students should always be wary that the contents of their messages do not contain any “indecent, offensive, defamatory, threatening, discriminatory or extremist” language, as that would be reported by the university.

A KCL spokesperson claimed that the university is in fact not currently monitoring emails to any noteworthy degree, and instead is simply publicising the fact that it has the capabilities it has in that capacity if deemed necessary. “The changes to text on the sign-in screen indicate our obligations under Prevent with regards to such policy,” the spokesman continued to say.

Tope Fisayo, a first year Med student at KCL, commented: “The last I heard of Prevent is that it was mainly picking up proto-far-right terrorists. Outside of that, the level of surveillance this state upholds is unacceptable and not everyone is watched equally.

“And if you’re concerned about being watched you can just use the emails you had before coming to uni I suppose. It’s just a big brother mess.”