INVESTIGATION

July 7th, 2025

For three years, a woman with a background in U.S. State Department cultural diplomacy and ties to intelligence-linked organizations quietly managed the membership database of Britain’s largest pro-Palestine organization.

Her name is Deborah Fiorin. Hired by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in early 2018 as its Membership and Data Officer, Fiorin held unprecedented access to the personal information of thousands of activists across the United Kingdom. Yet her prior work history, which includes a stint at a State Department propaganda arm and brief postings at firms with deep intelligence connections, raises serious questions about vetting, oversight, and the very integrity of the campaign’s leadership.

This investigation examines who Fiorin really is, how she came to hold such a sensitive post, and what her story reveals about the governance of PSC.

Ben Soffa, national secretary of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), has developed software to monitor and organize the group’s members. He owns a small company called Organic Campaigns and describes himself on LinkedIn as a “developer of online campaigning tools.” As national secretary, Soffa has access to PSC’s membership data and likely worked closely with whoever oversaw the database.

As revealed in my previous article, Soffa admitted to having “limited” contact with Assaf Kaplan, the former Israeli military intelligence officer who was controversially hired by the Labour Party as head of digital operations. It remains unclear whether Soffa shared PSC member data with his Labour colleague, but the question demands scrutiny.

A more pressing concern, however, is how PSC member data may have been used.

PSC claims to take data protection seriously. According to its official privacy policy, the organization collaborates with IT contractors, website managers, and database administrators to ensure that security features are regularly updated and that personal data is handled responsibly.

The policy states that outdated or irrelevant information should be deleted and that data should be retained only as long as necessary. If an individual requests to sever ties with the organization, their record should be marked as inactive, accompanied by a note explaining why they should no longer be contacted, such as the cancellation of their membership. The full policy is available here.

However, this investigation raises serious questions about whether PSC directors, including National Director Ben Jamal, have been willing or able to enforce the group’s data protection policy.

Concerns began with PSC’s hiring of a new staff member in January 2018, a year into Ben Jamal’s tenure as national director. Although he had previously served as a PSC director from January 2014 to July 2016, this was his first full year in the lead role. The new “Membership and Data Officer,” Deborah Fiorin, remained in post for just over three years, departing in January 2021.