UCL, London's Illegal University

I must confess surprise that The Independent ran a story about how the CIA now holds data on 900 current and former members of University College London's Islamic Society. After all, it is 1 April and the student body itself and their representatives don't seem bothered that they have not only broken the union's own data protection guidelines, they have also broken British and EU law.

Never mind, Britain's own secret police aren't concerned either. Not only did they act outside Britain's Data Protection Act when they gathered the data, the secret police also acted outside the act by passing on the data to the CIA.

I am reminded of this lackadaisical attitude to data protection when I think back to UCL Union's Annual General Meeting held on 23 February, this year. The students' union were the very opposite of lackadaisical in the build up to that meeting. Emails to clubs and societies reminded "to send two representatives to this meeting, as important decisions about the future of UCL Union and about Clubs and Societies get made there" and threatened non-attendence with reduced funding.

Unfortunately, the lackadaisical attitude returned in time for the meeting:

James "Tubby" Hodgson, the Student Activities Officer responsible for handing over the Islamic Society membership lists was asked to give a report on his activities this year. In questions afterwards, only one student of the 400 assembled, actually asked whether he had acted illegally. He said that it was Christmas, no-one at the University was available to give advice, he felt under pressure to act to prevent further terrorist acts. That being the scripted way of saying, "yes".

And that was that. The "important decisions made" were that the student body was bullied into accepting minutes of meetings that remain unpublished and unattended and worse, that a paid officer of the students' union acted illegally was not viewed as "important" at all.

The AGM then continued on its merry way with its various gimmicks and novelties such as the wi-fi voting gadgets and the comedy French chair, who did hid best to sound like Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau.

Maybe the students were distracted by the entertainment of Dave Spart's grandson invading the stage to protest about the proposed staff cuts. Maybe the students just didn't know one of their own representatives acted illegally by handing over those lists and now the CIA holds that data, too.

UCL's branding, "London's Global University" has bothered me for a long time. Not because it isn't catchy, not because it isn't true. It has bothered me because UCL invests more in publicizing its brand than its staff or complying with basic human rights legislation. "Global University"? Well, its data is shared among global secret services. That bothers other people.