Tag Archives: GCHQ

With the NSA and GCHQ so embedded with one another, concerns now arise that following the United States' presidential election, will GCHQ be able to maintain some autonomy in a world where Trump is president? This a real concern for privacy lobbyists, like the Open Rights Group, which wonders if …

The UK government has announced plans to invest £1.9 billion over the next five years in improving the defences of the country's digital infrastructure. It's hoped that with better education, more investment in newer systems and a more proactive approach to defence, the UK can prevent a greater number of …

One of the big arguments for more government surveillance, is that they're only ever after metadata. While that is rarely true, in the cases that it is, it's cited as being just a record of your calls, not the content of them. But it turns out that knowing who was …

Privacy International has managed to unearth thousands of documents which details decades of in-depth spying on British citizens by the country's intelligence agencies: GCHQ, MI5 and MI6. With minimum safeguards in place, those organisations have been snooping on British citizen's medical records, work histories and the online petitions they've signed, …

Amid all the arguments about encryption ongoing in the press and government right now, it's easy to forget that it's something that GCHQ and other intelligence agencies have been railing against for some time. I turns out that in 2010, it helped to reject a smartphone encryption standard that would …

Encryption might be something the Germans are big fans of, but the British government and its intelligence agencies continue to paint it as a tool of evil, used to hide criminal activity from the authorities. However as opposition to this view point grows, it's attempted to mollify concerns that it …

In the name of thwarting terrorism, British and US intelligence agencies have taken part in many questionable practices over the past few years. Often those actions are considered legally dubious by various international authorities, but that hasn't stopped them pushing full speed ahead. In a new round of document reveals …

It's no secret at this point that every member of the Five Eyes spying network (essentially every English speaking nation) has been snooping on not only their citizens, but everyone else's over the past few years, under the guise of anti-terrorism efforts. Despite this though, new revelations every few months …

The Open Rights Group is a big proponent of, above all else, open rights. That means it champions the rights of individuals online, including freedoms of expression, freedoms of speech, information and privacy. With all of the Edward Snowden revelations and similar in the past couple of years, it's had …

Everything your phone transmits to and receives from your network providers phone tower is encrypted, so that only the network operator can receive your calls and data and route them as you request. This is all encrypted with a set of keys on the sim card inside your phone and another set …

For the first time in the history of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal – a court designed specifically to look into complaints against Britain's intelligence agencies – it has found the actions of GCHQ unlawful in its dealings with the NSA and how it spied on British citizens for many years, hoovering …

Yesterday, fresh faced and bushy tailed, new head of the GCHQ, Robert Hannigan announced that he wanted tech firms of the UK to strike a new deal with intelligence agencies to ensure more cooperation. His reasoning for this call on social networks and similar companies, was to (of course) help …

One of the keystone shocks of the big Edward Snowden reveals last year, was that tech giants like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and many others had been forced into handing over information to the governments in the five-eyes intelligence alliance (USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada), without being able to …

Over the past year, the world has become much more aware of the way government's sniff out data on potential criminals: in short, everything is recorded. Edward Snowden's revelations about this have helped create a growing tide of disquiet with regards to overly intrusive surveillance and especially when it comes …

The Human Rights Watch and American Civil Liberties Union have come out with a report to condemn the actions of the US government and spy agencies like the NSA, which have been mass collecting data on American and international citizens. The 120-page document is titled, “With Liberty to Monitor All: …

At least it looks like the public and open rights groups aren't the only ones that find GCHQ's snooping antics leave a bad taste in their mouth. The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has had its annual award ceremony where it gives props to some of the best and brightest …

The British government is rushing through a new set of laws to allow intelligence agencies like GCHQ and ISPs, to continue legally collecting meta-data on phone calls and digital communications, and in some cases the content of those conversations, in the wake of the EU ruling data retention as a human rights …

GCHQ, the British intelligence agency that is responsible for Tempora, the UK's version of the NSA's PRISM spying scheme which hoovers up data on citizens and foreign nationals alike without permission, is going to have to defend itself in court, as a handful of internet service providers from around the …

It was this very week in 2013 that first saw revelations of the NSA, GCHQ and the US government's advanced spying regime first hit the internet, as Edward Snowden divulged masses of secretive documents to Guardian journalists and ultimately, to the world, from his hideout in Hong Kong. Since then …

While Obama might be happy to keep telling people that the NSA isn't interested in reading your texts, the kind of legislation that makes it possible for countries like the US and the UK to spy on citizens and store huge amounts of metadata on who's calling who and when, …

Unfortunately we now live in a world where government intelligence agencies like the NSA, GCHQ, the GCSB and more are perfectly within their (pseudo) legal rights to record data from our phones and internet connections on the off chance that we might be a terrorist. Apparently it goes far further …

David Miranda, the man who was detained after trying to transfer thousands of secretive documents from ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden to his partner and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, has lost his lawsuit against the British government and has ultimately been labelled a potential terrorist suspect, thanks to a very loose …

Barack Obama might have been pretty non-committal in his response to the Edward Snowden leaks about NSA and GCHQ spying on native and international citizens, but David Cameron has shrugged them off, suggesting that they shouldn't be a surprise to everyone, since TV detective shows are always using potentially illegal spying …

Legal advisers to the British government have told MPs that much of the surveillance that GCHQ has been taking part in over the past few years could be considered illegal and in breach of human rights, and was only possible due to vagaries in current legislation that have been obtusely interpreted …

In the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks from early 2013, the western world and specifically US and British citizens, have come to accept that the NSA and GCHQ have no doubt snooped in our conversations, metadata, Facebook posts and more, with the excuse that they're protecting us from terrorism. …

Even if you're one of those people that isn't a big fan of European intervention in British politics, you surely have to admit that it's nice to see Europe weighing in on our behalf in this instance. The EU Court of Human Rights has issued a demand that will see …

Heads of the British intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and GCHQ were quizzed at a public hearing earlier this month, where they answered questions on the UK's spying activities. However it's now being suggested that all three organisations struck a deal to let them see the questions they would be asked …

If you read tech news sites like ours with any frequency, chances are you're well aware at this point that the NSA has its ear to a glass on every bedroom wall in the digital world. We're well aware that companies like Google and Facebook cooperate with it and we …

The pressure is mounting for blanket data gathering organisations the world over, as members of European parliament (MEP) yesterday voted with overwhelming support to block the transfer of personal data to US corporations and agencies and tightened the law on digital privacy too. Under new draft laws, US companies operating …

While the British and US government's have been keen to defend their Tempora and PRISM surveillance programs, it looks like the international community might not feel the same way. After some scrutiny by legal experts at the European Parliament this week, several individuals concluded that the actions of both governments …