ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which universities translate the Prevent duty into IT-related higher education policies and practices. Those charged with the implementation of Prevent at their universities are conceptualized as the ‘securitizing audience’. A document review of IT-related policies across the English university sector, as well as interviews with five IT security experts and members of university Prevent Committees, explores how universities position themselves in the process of securitization operating through the Prevent policy. Specifically, I draw out the different approaches to web filtering and monitoring, the relationship between universities and intelligence agencies and the way in which information gathering on students’ online activity has changed under Prevent. The research finds that despite a critical attitude towards Prevent, some universities have become active agents of securitization, not only by adapting and perpetuating the rhetoric that conceptualizes thoughts, students and universities as potential threats to national security, but also by engaging in filtering and monitoring activities that conflate welfare and securitization.
