Fifteen government departments have been monitoring the social media activity of potential critics and compiling secret files in order to block them from speaking at public events, the Observer can reveal.
Under the guidelines issued in each department, including the departments of health, culture, media and sport, and environment, food and rural affairs, officials are advised to check experts' Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts. They are also told to conduct Google searches on those individuals, using specific terms such as criticism of government or prime minister.
The scale of the monitoring was uncovered by human rights experts at law firm Leigh Day and shared with the Observer. This is likely to have impacted large numbers of individuals, many of whom won't know civil servants hold these files on them.
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