Children as young as 13 have been secretly monitored online as part of a continuing surveillance operation run by the Metropolitan police, the Guardian has learned.
The project could also be gathering data on much younger children, as it is not compulsory for officers to document the ages of the individuals they are targeting.
The Met says the scheme, known as Project Alpha, helps fight serious violence, with the intelligence gathered identifying offenders and securing the removal of videos glorifying stabbings and shootings from platforms such as YouTube.
Met police documents say it collects “children’s personal data” from social media sites.
The latest revelations have escalated concerns among human rights organisations about the Met potentially violating data laws and disproportionately targeting children from racial minorities.
The advocacy group Liberty has told the Guardian it suspects the project of breaching the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act and the Data Protection Act.
Nearly 7,000 records across two databases have been created in connection with the scheme, with the youngest age recorded as 13, according to data obtained through freedom of information requests by the research group Point Source.
The Met said each of the records related to work on Project Alpha and might include online content, social media account details, age and ethnicity.
Project Alpha was launched in June 2019 and the police have said that its aim is to target gangs by developing intelligence from “private and open” social media profiles as well as securing the removal of videos glorifying stabbings and shootings from platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
The unit, comprising more than 30 staff, has received £4.8m in Home Office funding and trawls social media sites using “covert methods”, viewing drill music videos and other content.
Emmanuelle Andrews of Liberty said: “Given the way this project has been framed, targeting black art forms like drill music and what the Met believes are gangs, I have no doubt it disproportionately targets young people from ethnic minorities.
“Through this project, and others, the government is laying serious youth violence at the feet of young black men and boys, when we know that really it is government neglect, inequality, and exclusion that fuels this violence.”
The Met said it launched its second Project Alpha database on 1 April 2022 as an attempt to “streamline the referral process and improve accuracy in the capture of data metrics”.
It added: “The reason for capture of date of birth is to assist with the identification of the correct subjects for case work but is not an essential data point to progress Alpha’s work.”
Stafford Scott, a veteran community campaigner, said: “A police force that has just been re-identified as being institutionally racist is going out and harvesting the names of young black kids without actually having any evidence of them committing a crime. This has got to ring alarm bells for everybody.
“We cannot trust the Metropolitan police force to behave in a fair and even-handed manner with the black community.”
The Met has said that while Project Alpha does collect data on children from social media and has expanded the number of categories of information over 2023, the project is not using this information to profile them.
In a statement to the Guardian, the Met said: “The Met does not track or profile any individual of any age through Project Alpha.”
It added: “All activities of Project Alpha are generated as a result of a criminal offence or safeguarding concern.”
The Met has declined to comment on how many categories of information are being collected on individuals identified by Project Alpha, or how many people have been identified by the project. It also declined to outline any special safeguarding measures it was taking when dealing with the information of young people.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Project Alpha tackles gang-related serious violence and organised criminality by taking action against related harmful online activity, to keep our communities safe.
“This work is underpinned by a range of safeguards to ensure the project does not unlawfully discriminate against any protected characteristic.”
Both the Met and the Home Office declined to say what checks and reviews had taken place to make sure that the activities conducted as part of Project Alpha are not racist or discriminatory.
