Head of hostile state counterintelligence at MI5 has demanded that the 100-year old Official Secrets Act be updated and that the British public play their role in responding to an unpredicted storm of threats.
According to the senior intelligence officer Director K (who can only be identified publicly by her title), there has been a ‘increasingly harmful activity’ directed towards the UK from hostile countries, such as Russia and China.
Her warning to British citizens was that threats to the UK were becoming increasingly diverse. These include state-backed hackers and electoral interference.
Thames House is the headquarters of MI5 where Director K spoke out in a rare interview. He warned that British citizens need to be vigilant because threats against Britain are increasing.
Other than the director general Ken McCallum, Director K’s boss, nobody as senior that the spy, who is in her 40’s, has ever given a media interview before.
This is because it will make the UK more aware that there are many threats to it.
Director K has the responsibility of protecting Britain’s intellectual property and keeping it safe from assassins.
Britain appears to be in danger from malign interferance, which could include theft of intellectual properties and plots to assassinate the government.
These include the Russian spy that stole the blueprint of the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid vaccination, as well as the attempted murder by Vladmir Putin of a Russian double agent using Novichok nerve agents in Salisbury.
Britain appears to be at risk from malicious interference. This could include theft of intellectual property and crass plots to assassinate the country, such as the Russian spy who stole blueprints for the Oxford AstraZeneca-Covid vaccine. Pictured above is the Thames House Arch located at MI5 headquarters, which was decorated purple for International Day for Persons with Disabilities.
Only two individuals have been prosecuted under the 1911 Official Secrets Act, director K stated.
Some parts of the original act still remain in force despite its replacement in 1989.
Director K explained that it is necessary to create new legislation as the nation still relies upon laws from over a century ago.
She said that Parliament had taken the decision to reform the Act. They were to strike the right balance for Britain while still giving MI5 all the necessary tools.
Then she told them. Telegraph: ‘In the current world, threats really are diverse.
It is a collection of potential threats that could harm the UK’s national security. Therefore, we concentrate on those areas in which we have the greatest effect against them.
‘The threats we are looking at primarily exist around protecting government, protecting secrets, protecting our people, so counter-assassination, protecting our economy and our sensitive technology and critical knowledge.’
Director K said that spying today does not look like old-school spy-on–spy films.
It affects everyone in Britain today she said.
Although the UK was under an immediate threat from Russia, it is actually China’s threat which she described as more chronic and long-term.
Director K described Putin’s Russia like an unpredictable storm and compared China’s threat to climate change’s great dangers.
Director K called Putin’s Russia an unpredictable storm and compared China’s threat to climate change. The view that MI5 staff saw as they entered MI5 Headquarters in Thames House (London) is shown here.
Her main point was to advise strategic firms not to sell to Chinese companies because intellectual property is frequently being stolen.
Director general Ken McCallum made a big speech in July at London’s Thames House Headquarters to remind the people that they are vulnerable to the problems of hostile states.
He said that less obvious threats could affect all of us.
The UK’s security agency says that there have been more then 10,000 such “disguised approach(s) from foreign spy to regular people in Britain, trying to manipulate them” to this point.
This was done through LinkedIn and other social media sites to get information.
McCallum says that’regular folks’ need to be more vigilant about hacking, misinformation and spying on the world’s leading research and technology.