BA, RBS and Porsche hired surveillance firms to spy on campaign groups
Updated : 14:32
Leaked documents reveal that five large companies have paid for corporate intelligence services to spy on political groups and environmental activists who might pose problems for their business.
According to The Guardian and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, hundreds of pages have been leaked from two corporate intelligence firms (C2i International and Inkerman Group) that reveal activities carried out over several years in the 2000s.
The monitoring included the use of people who had infiltrated the political groups and then passed on information to the companies. The infiltrators would pose as sympathisers to their cause and try to help them in any way. They were usually added to the mailing list and attended private meetings.
Police revealed that there were more undercover spies in these campaign groups than there were policemen. In the past, police departments have raised concerns that the activities of these large companies are not regulated enough.
One of the cases involved C2i International trying to gather information on the Corrie family who were taking legal action against Caterpillar. Their daughter, Rachel, was the student protester who was crushed to death in 2003 by one of their bulldozers when trying to stop Palestinian homes from being destroyed by the Israeli military. The family decided to sue the company for being an accomplice in war crimes, claiming that Caterpillar knew what the Israeli military would use the bulldozers for.
In 2008, C2i's clients reportedly included the Royal Bank of Scotland, British Airways and Porsche.
That same year, C2i was also said to have offered its services to US President Donald Trump’s property development firm, which was trying to build a golf course and a hotel on land that was ecologically delicate in Scotland.
According to The Guardian and BIJ, the leaked documents also showed that the surveillance firm claimed it had ’real-time intelligence assets’ in organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of Earth.