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Ex-MI5 boss: Private firms spy like us

11 March 2016

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"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."

See the full text: Ex-MI5 boss: Private firms spy like us (Evening Standard, link)

And see: Spying on a see through world: the "Open Source" intelligence industry, by Ben Hayes (Statewatch Journal, January-March 2010)

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