A Newcastle United football fan has been reported to the police and barred from matches after the Premier League compiled a detailed dossier on her, according to the fan, Linzi Smith.
The 34-year-old lifelong fan of Newcastle United football club (NUFC) said she has been banned for the rest of the current season and the next two seasons.
She also said she doesn’t feel safe walking around where she lives anymore because the dossier, which she obtained after filing a subject access request (SAR), shows attempts to find out where she lives by trawling over X, formerly known as Twitter.
Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union (FSU), which is supporting Ms. Smith, described her case as “the most egregious example” that he had come across where companies have published their employees or customers “for exercising their lawful right to free speech.”
Mr. Young said Ms. Smith has filed a complaint with the information regulator. He also said he believes NUFC may have breached the Equality Act by discriminating against Ms. Smith.
After some probing, she eventually got an email saying it was in relation to things she had posted on social media that could be seen as “transphobic,” Ms. Smith said.
According to the report, she was interviewed under caution about her posts on X for 25 minutes, and received a call from the police two hours later that she had not committed any offence.
Ms. Smith has said that NUFC banned her anyway despite her protest that her political views and her social media posts had nothing to do with the football club.
Online Investigation and Target Profile
Ms. Smith was advised to file a SAR request to NUFC, who sent her a cache of emails and documents which The Telegraph said detailed a “four-month investigation” on her.Among the documents was a Premier League report titled “Linzi Smith—Online Investigation and Target Profile,” according to screenshots or scans published in The Telegraph.
In the executive summary page, Ms. Smith was referred to as the “target.”
“The target resides in Newcastle within proximity of [redacted],” the document appears to say, adding that she had been “flagged for investigation by Newcastle due to posting transphobic comments on Twitter” after being reported by a “Newcastle United supporter and member of United with Pride.”
One page appears to show screenshots of her alleged “transphobic” social media posts. Another one appears to show a screenshot of her posts via a different username—which no longer exists—with a comment saying the team had identified “their” birthday “through further searches on their Twitter,” and the X handle suggested “they were born in 1989.”
The Epoch Times has not independently verified the documents.
In the video published by the FSU, Ms. Smith said of the report, “They’ve tried to find my identity. They’re trying to find where I live. They even went as far as to get screenshots off my Twitter. They searched in the search bar ‘I live’ to find anywhere I’ve said where I live, took images of me where I used to walk my dog behind my house, got Google Images of the church there in the park that’s there.”
She also said the document said she’s got ties to a place because she has worked there.
“I just don’t see what any of that has to do with any of it. And I don’t know who’s seen that information,” she said, adding that the situation feels “quite frightening.”
“I don’t feel safe walking around where I live anymore,” she said. “It’s horrible.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to NUFC and the Premier League for comments.
