A group of journalists has launched a legal action against Scotland Yard after discovering that the Metropolitan police has been recording their professional activities on a secret database designed to monitor so-called domestic extremists.
The six journalists have obtained official files that reveal how police logged details of their work as they reported on protests. One photographer discovered that the Met police had more than 130 entries detailing his movements, including what he was wearing, at demonstrations he attended as a member of the press.
They have started the legal action to expose what they say is a persistent pattern of journalists being assaulted, monitored and stopped and searched by police during their work, which often includes documenting police misconduct.
In legal paperwork, the journalists who have worked for national newspapers describe how they have regularly exposed malpractice by the state and big corporations and have campaigned for press freedom.
The group includes a journalist on the Times. Jules Mattsson, who, police noted, was “always looking for a story”. Mattsson said that when he had been a victim of crime, police had transferred on to the domestic extremism database details of his appearance, childhood and a family member’s medical history.
Adrian Arbib, a press photographer for three decades, found that police had recorded him taking photographs of Heathrow airport for a Guardian story about the decline of English orchards.
Freelance photographer Jess Hurd discovered that her file dated back to 2000.
Five of the journalists have successfully sued the police in the past, winning damages or apologies over wrongdoing such as being assaulted or unjustifiably searched by officers while they worked.
The legal action, backed by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), has been initiated at a time when the media are protesting that police are misusingsurveillance powers to access reporters’ telephone records to unmask confidential sources.
The journalists are seeking to force the Met to destroy the files held on them as they say the surveillance violates the liberty of the press and their privacy.
They have used the Data Protection Act to obtain copies of the files. Many of the 130-plus entries in the file of freelance photographer Jason Parkinson since 2005 note that he is a photographer working for the media and log how he is using a camera or video to record events.
Several entries note that he is a member of the NUJ and had a visible card around his neck declaring this fact. Another entry records that on a 2009 demonstration, he was “present throughout the protest, undertaking his photographic duties”. Often his dress, body piercings, and facial hair are described.
The file on David Hoffman, a freelance photographer who has been chroniclingdemonstrations for the media since 1976, appears to label him twice as “an Anti-Nazi League photographer”. He said he had never been a member or worked for the Anti-Nazi League, a campaign that was wound up more than a decade ago.