What are Police Liaison Officers?

The presence of uniformed officers at many demonstrations around Britain, who wear light blue bibs with “Police Liaison Officer” on the back, has become commonplace. They seem more friendly than other officers, but their efforts to chat with protesters hide their true role.

Police leaders claim their job is to undertake what is misleadingly called “dialogue policing”, which is supposed to ensure there are “no surprises”. But this is always only ever in one direction: no surprises for police, perhaps, but this is never true for protesters.

Over a decade of evidence has shown, from monitoring how these officers are deployed, that without any doubt the primary role of Police Liaison Officers is as front-line intelligence-gatherers. Yet still they constantly deny this.

Police Liaison Officers are trained to wheedle out seemingly harmless information that is not simply focused on individual protesters but, when combined with other conversations and other intelligence, helps to build a bigger picture of the group organising a protest.

By actively attempting to engage in these insincere “friendly chats” with demonstrators, they have become the eyes and ears of the police’s public order intelligence operation, right in the heart of our demonstrations.

Their presence is now presented by the police as inevitable. As a result, this is seldom challenged. When protest organisers do decide to push back against having PLOs imposed on their protest, police treat objections to this kind of intrusive surveillance as a sign of a greater “risk” to public order.

While PLOs have continued to pretend they aim only to “facilitate” the right to assemble, protesters have seen for themselves how the police have clamped down harder with more sweeping restrictions on demonstrations, especially since 2019.

Just because PLOs are hovering around attempting to start a conversation, however, does not mean anyone is forced to talk to them. Increasingly, more and more protesters are embracing the message that avoiding any engagement with them is important to keep each other safe.

You don’t have to talk to them – so don’t.

Resources

Darren Cullen has created this sign to download, print and turn into a placard to bring to protests and follow the blue bibs around. It available download as a PDF and print in size A0 but it is possible to change or split into two A1 prints.

A short clip for sharing on social media (1m 43s), taken from the longer film below, that shows blue-bibbed “Police Liaison Officers” (intelligence-gatherers) in action at an anti-fracking protest.

Download and share this video