Ex-MI5 boss: Private firms spy like us

The former head of MI5 said private firms are now using spy techniques
Robert Cutts

Private firms are compiling detailed personal profiles of ordinary citizens using methods that are “just as intrusive” as those deployed by Britain’s intelligence agencies, the former head of MI5 has warned.

Baron Evans of Weardale said the companies were using “open source” material to learn “an awful lot about what you do on a daily basis and who you associate with” to an extent that “would be very surprising” to most of the public.

Lord Evans, who served as director general of the Security Service until 2013, added that the firms had “really effective and powerful investigative capabilities” but faced only limited legal controls that were much weaker than those applied to the intelligence agencies.

His comments came during a debate on security and freedom organised by Bristol University on London’s HMS Belfast.

On the increasing ability of private firms to compile profiles of ordinary citizens, Lord Evans, who is now a director of HSBC bank, said: “Open source is really interesting. If you look at what can be done today with open source in comparison with secret intelligence, the gap is closing.

“There are some technologies out there, there are some companies that offer really effective and powerful investigative capabilities through open source which tell you an awful lot - a lot more than one would realise by clever looking and using various technologies to support that.

“The legal protections on that are very limited … but if you add it all together it's much more intrusive than you might realise. There a lot of companies out there who could tell you an awful lot about what you do on a daily basis and who you associate with etc in a way that would be very surprising and the accountability of that is much and in a way it's probably just as intrusive as some of the covert and authorised techniques that appear under the legislation.”

On the issue of encryption used by technology companies to protect their customers’ privacy, Lord Evans said: “If you weaken encryption in a systemic sense then …. the downside is lots of other people get in as well.

“Personally, I don't support that as a way of addressing this problem and in so far as that was a route that was taken by signals intelligence agencies in the revelation under Snowden and so on, I don't think that was the right way to go.”

He suggested, however, that internet firms were failing in their “moral” duty to assist in the fight against terrorism and crime and contrasted their approach with the way in which banks sought to prevent their systems being misused.

“I'm director of a bank. I spend most of my time trying to ensure that criminals cannot open accounts, process their money through the bank - money launderers, terrorists etc. If we fail in that we are subject to very severe opprobrium and huge fines because we should not be enabling our profitable bank to be used by a bad actor,” he said.

“I cannot understand why if you are a big profitable global bank there is a moral requirement to ensure that your system is not being abused by bad actors, but if you are a big profitable telecommunications company you say oh it would be terrible if we helped the authorities. It just seems complete double standards."

Lord Evans also warned that some methods used previously by intelligence agencies to “weaken encryption in a systemic sense” had not been “the right way to go” when trying to find information on the internet, despite the “complete double standards” of technology firms who allow their networks to be used by extremists.

On the row between Apple and the FBI over a demand that the firm instals software on the phone of San Bernardino killer Syed Farook that will allow access to its contents, Lord Evans said he believed that tech companies could be persuaded in future to use a “key” to help law enforcers on a “collaborative” legal basis.

He warned, however, that intelligence agencies should not degrade the strength of encryption and said that some practices exposed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden had been misguided.

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