A tranche of internal documents obtained from UK intelligence services sheds light on their bulk collection of our data – and also reveals that spies have accessed databases of this private information in order to tend to personal business.
The documents from GCHQ, MI5, and MI6 cover the past 15 years and were obtained by privacy campaign group Privacy International as part of a legal challenge against the government’s surveillance tactics. They show that security services regularly requisition information on individuals from banks, doctors, and other public and private institutions. This includes information on hair colour, blood type, medical history, petitions they had signed, and correspondence with lawyers.
These “Bulk Personal Datasets” are used to monitor individuals who may be a threat to the country’s national security, but, according to the agencies themselves, “the majority of [these people] are unlikely to be of intelligence or security interest”.
One memo in particular, sent by the Secret Intelligence Agency in 2011, also reveals spies’ lax attitudes to the handling of personal data. It notes that employees have “look[ed] up addresses in order to send birthday cards” in intelligence databases, checked passport details, and “check[ed] details of family members for personal convenience”.
The memo goes on to note that each search “has the potential to invade the privacy of individuals, including individuals who are not the main subject of your search”.
Millie Graham Wood, the Legal Officer at Privacy International, called the data profiles built up around individuals “staggering”:
This data is integrated into databases that could be used to build detailed profiles about all of us. The agencies themselves admit that the majority of data collected relates to individuals who are not a threat to national security or suspected of a crime. This highly sensitive information about us is vulnerable to attack from hackers, foreign governments, and criminals.
She added that agencies have been carrying out this type of surveillance for 15 years, and are now seeking to back-legitimise it through the Investigatory Powers Bill, or “Snooper’s Charter“. The bill is currently at committee stage in the Commons.
You can see the full set of documents here. You can sign Privacy International’s petition against new police snooping powers here.
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