Spoof Aviva advert, with CCTV cameras, next to Norwich sign, protesting Aviva insuring Serco

UK outsourcing corporation Serco Group has again come under intense scrutiny as its insurer, Aviva, faces criticism from employees, union reps, and human rights experts.

On 1 October, local campaigners in Norwich put up spoof Aviva adverts covered in CCTV cameras. They were highlighting how the insurer is underwriting the 24/7 surveillance of migrants through its contract with Serco Group.

They say it’s failing to comply with international human rights law in its immigration contracts to provide detention centres and GPS tags.

An Aviva Insurance employee who has chosen to remain anonymous said:

I’m disappointed to learn that we do business with Serco. It’s definitely prompted me to reassess whether this is a business I can be proud to work for.

My colleagues and I all go to work with the intention of helping people – a huge proportion of roles are customer-facing, and the business really pushes having people-first values. Having a contract with Serco really undermines all of that.

A new legal brief by Refugee Law Lab, which assesses Serco’s own Human Rights Supplement found that Serco’s operations in the UK’s immigration detention are incompatible with established international law and various legal instruments.

Human rights lawyer Petra Molnar issued a stark warning to Serco’s Insurers:

While Serco claims that its operations are compliant with domestic legislation, under international law, states cannot contract out their human rights obligations, and neither can their private contractors.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) represents civil servants from the UK’s Border Force and Asylum Casework. PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote stated:

We strongly support bringing government contracts in-house after years of seeing private corporations like Serco, Clearsprings, and Mears turn public funds into private wealth while asylum seekers face appalling conditions.

The problem isn’t at the border; it’s failed asylum policy and a detention centre-focused system, driven by divisive rhetoric. Now is the moment to end multibillion-pound private contracts and invest that money in services and homes that benefit entire communities.

In a public statement, the Norwich Trades Council called on Aviva to review its contracts with Serco:

Aviva has deep roots in Norwich and is one of the city’s most significant employers. Norwich trade unionists have a proud history of taking action against corporate involvement in injustice. Today, we stand with migrants, refugees and people seeking sanctuary and call on Aviva to end its insurance relationship with Serco.

Norwich is the operational headquarters for Aviva’s core UK General Insurance business (formerly Norwich Union). Norwich holds historical significance as the company’s largest employee hub outside London.

Serco on list of border industry profiteers

The Norwich action comes as new research from Corporate Watch identifies 20 companies, including Serco, at the forefront of the global Border Industry. Governments in the UK, EU and US are continuing to expand spending on migration control, surveillance, detention and deportation.

The 2026 Border Divestment List identifies household names profiting from border enforcement across seven areas: cloud infrastructure, deportation, detention, accommodation, border security and control, search and “rescue”, and biometrics and identification.

The 20 companies highlighted by the research are:

  • Serco.
  • Accenture.
  • Alphabet.
  • Amazon.
  • Thermo Fisher.
  • Experian.
  • Microsoft.
  • RELX PLC.
  • Palantir.
  • Zap (Titan).
  • L3Harris.
  • Elbit.
  • Mitie.
  • RTX (Raytheon).
  • Sodexo.
  • BAE.
  • Cellebrite.
  • QinetiQ.
  • Motorola.
  • Thales.

The research finds that major technology, defence, logistics and infrastructure companies are increasingly embedded in the systems used to monitor, contain and remove people on the move.

In the UK alone, private companies have received more than £3.7bn in border security contracts since 2015, according to academic research.

André Dallas, co-director of Migrant Justice at People & Planet, said:

The border industry is a vast corporate ecosystem, with a wide range of corporate interests vying to capture a slice of the ballooning budgets being poured into militarised responses to human migration.

From cloud computing and biometrics to surveillance and logistics, companies are profiting from the expansion of violent systems that control and restrict the movement of people.

For years students have been demanding that their universities cut ties with this deadly industry, and this research provides clear actionable data giving institutions nowhere to hide.

So far, 14 UK universities have made public commitments to exclude the Border Industry from their investments, including SOAS, Bradford and Kent, with further campaign victories to be revealed over the coming months.

Through the Divest Borders campaign, students across the country are taking action to demand that their universities end their complicity in the corporate operations identified by this research.

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By The Canary

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