ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, also known as the Five Eyes.
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.
The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), formerly the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), is the federal statutory agency in the Australian Government responsible for foreign signals intelligence, support to military operations, cyber warfare, and information security. ASD is part of the Australian Intelligence Community. ASD's role within UKUSA Agreement is to monitor signals intelligence ("SIGINT") in South and East Asia. The ASD also houses the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
MI8, or Military Intelligence, Section 8 was a British Military Intelligence group responsible for signals intelligence and was created in 1914. It originally consisted of four sections: MI8(a), which dealt with wireless policy; MI8(b), based at the General Post Office, dealt with commercial and trade cables; MI8(c) dealt with the distribution of intelligence derived from censorship; and MI8(d), which liaised with the cable companies. During World War I MI8 officers were posted to the cable terminals at Poldhu Point and Mullion in Cornwall and Clifden in County Galway, continued until 1917 when the work was taken over by the Admiralty. In WW2, MI8 was responsible for the extensive War Office Y Group and briefly, for the Radio Security Service.
Hanslope is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority area of the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The village is about 4 miles (6.4 km) west northwest of Newport Pagnell, about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Stony Stratford and 8 miles (13 km) north of Central Milton Keynes. The northern parish boundary is part of the county boundary with Northamptonshire.
The United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement is a multilateral agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The alliance of intelligence operations is also known as the Five Eyes. In classification markings this is abbreviated as FVEY, with the individual countries being abbreviated as AUS, CAN, NZL, GBR, and USA, respectively.
GCHQ Bude, also known as GCHQ Composite Signals Organisation Station Morwenstow, abbreviated to GCHQ CSO Morwenstow, is a UK Government satellite ground station and eavesdropping centre located on the north Cornwall coast at Cleave Camp, between the small villages of Morwenstow and Coombe. It is operated by the British signals intelligence service, officially known as the Government Communications Headquarters, commonly abbreviated GCHQ. It is located on part of the site of the former World War II airfield, RAF Cleave.
The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an anglosphere intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are party to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence. Informally, "Five Eyes" can refer to the group of intelligence agencies of these countries. The term "Five Eyes" originated as shorthand for a "AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US EYES ONLY" (AUSCANNZUKUS) releasability caveat.
The "Y" service was a network of British signals intelligence collection sites, the Y-stations. The service was established during the First World War and used again during the Second World War. The sites were operated by a range of agencies including the Army, Navy and RAF, and the Foreign Office. The General Post Office and the Marconi Company provided some receiving stations, ashore and afloat. There were more than 600 receiving sets in use at Y-stations during the Second World War.
Hanslope Park is located about half a mile south-east of the village of Hanslope in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. Once the manorial estate of the village, it is now owned by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and is also home to His Majesty's Government Communications Centre ('HMGCC') and FCDO Services.
Palantir Technologies Inc. is a public American company that specializes in software platforms for big data analytics. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, it was founded by Peter Thiel, Nathan Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Alex Karp in 2003. The company's name is derived from The Lord of the Rings where the magical palantíri were "seeing-stones," described as indestructible balls of crystal used for communication and to see events in other parts of the world.
The Diplomatic Wireless Service (DWS) was the name of the communications system set up for the British Foreign Office by Brigadier Richard Gambier-Parry, the first Foreign Office Director of Communications, in the latter part of 1945. It grew out of the Special Communication Units (SCU) which were responsible for communications for MI6 during the war. Its original base was at Whaddon Hall in Buckinghamshire, but it moved to Hanslope Park in the winter of 1946/47. The primary role of the DWS was communications between British embassies and the UK, this part of its operations being based at Hanslope Park, which is still the HQ of its successor, His Majesty's Government Communications Centre (HMGCC).
Robert Peter Hannigan CMG is a cybersecurity specialist who has been Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, since 2021. He was a senior British civil servant who previously served as the director of the signals intelligence and cryptography agency the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and established the UK's National Cyber Security Centre. His sudden resignation as director was announced on 23 January 2017, and he stepped down at the end of April 2017 to pursue a career in private sector cyber security, academia and as a security commentator. In 2021 he became Warden of Wadham College, Oxford.
The Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), now Computer Network Operations, and structured as S32, is a cyber-warfare intelligence-gathering unit of the National Security Agency (NSA). It has been active since at least 1998, possibly 1997, but was not named or structured as TAO until "the last days of 2000," according to General Michael Hayden.
During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year.
Wickr is an American software company based in New York City, known for its instant messenger application with the same name. The Wickr instant messaging apps allow users to exchange end-to-end encrypted and content-expiring messages, and are designed for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems. Wickr was acquired by Amazon Web Services (AWS) mid-2021. They discontinued the free version of the app in December 2023.
This timeline of global surveillance disclosures from 2013 to the present day is a chronological list of the global surveillance disclosures that began in 2013. The disclosures have been largely instigated by revelations from the former American National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains several intelligence agencies that deal with secret intelligence. These agencies are responsible for collecting, analysing and exploiting foreign and domestic intelligence, providing military intelligence, and performing espionage and counter-espionage. Their intelligence assessments contribute to the conduct of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom, maintaining the national security of the United Kingdom, military planning, public safety, and law enforcement in the United Kingdom. The four main agencies are the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service (MI5), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and Defence Intelligence (DI). The agencies are organised under three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is an organisation of the United Kingdom Government that provides advice and support for the public and private sector in how to avoid computer security threats. It is the UK's National technical authority for cyber threats and Information Assurance Based in London, it became operational in October 2016, and its parent organisation is GCHQ.
Sir Jeremy Ian Fleming was the Director of the Government Communications Headquarters, the UK's intelligence, cyber and security agency. He was appointed in 2017 and was the 16th person to hold the role. He left the post in May 2023.
