Mind the Facebook Gap...blown cover?
A colleague pointed out the complexities of social media and undercover identities.
Sunday's Daily Mail is reporting on the problematic Facebook disclosures by Lady Shelly Sawers as her husband, Sir John Sawers is about to become the head of the MI6.
"MI6 chief blows his cover as wife's Facebook account reveals family holidays, showbiz friends and links to David Irving
By Jason Lewis
Last updated at 7:14 PM on 05th July 2009
The new head of MI6 has been left exposed by a major personal security breach after his wife published intimate photographs and family details on the Facebook website.
Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all Britain's spying operations abroad.
But his wife's entries on the social networking site have exposed potentially compromising details about where they live and work, who their friends are and where they spend their holidays.
Amazingly, she had put virtually no privacy protection on her account, making it visible to any of the site's 200million users who chose to be in the open-access 'London' network - regardless of where in the world they actually were.
There are fears that the hugely embarrassing blunder may have compromised the safety of Sir John's family and friends.
Lady Shelley Sawers' extraordinary lapse exposed the couple's friendships with senior diplomats and well-known actors, including Moir Leslie, who plays a leading character in The Archers. And it
revealed that the intelligence chief's brother-in-law - who holidayed with him last month - is an associate of the controversial Right-wing historian David Irving.
Immediately after The Mail on Sunday alerted the Foreign Office to the astonishing misjudgment, all trace of the material – which could potentially be useful to hostile foreign powers or terrorists - was removed from the internet.
The move suggests that MI6 or the Foreign Office, which is also responsible for the GCHQ electronic eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, had not vetted what sort of information Sir John and his family were distributing over the internet."
Early this year, SC Magazine UK had an a op-ed expressing concern about the impact of social networks upon the ability to get recruits for the security services.
http://www.scmagazineuk.com/Social-networking-websites-make-recruiting-spies-difficult/article/126754/
Imagine the scene. James Bond enters the HQ of a criminal mastermind intent on world destruction. Waiting for him are a host of henchpersons, all armed to the teeth.
“We've been expecting you, Mr Bond,” says the evil Blofeld, stroking his white Persian cat. “We saw your Twitter update.”
The UK's universities are a prime recruiting ground for our intelligence services. Clever, well-versed students apparently make excellent espionage agents.
Herein lies the problem: if you're planning on having a second identity for undercover work, it doesn't help if your photos, friends and real name are splattered all over various social networking sites. Try finding a student at a university who hasn't done just that.
The UK's intelligence agencies are worried. From schoolchildren on Bebo, through Facebook-obsessed young professionals, to well-networked CEOs on LinkedIn, having an online presence is a must in this day and age. But with the explosion of social networking sites, it has become
virtually impossible to find recruits who don't have some sort of an online trail.
Pandora's box is well and truly opened, so how do you go about suppressing your online identity?
The problem for national security staff is that once these details are out there, it is well nigh impossible to remove them completely.