With the UK Government’s so called Snoopers’ Charter – officially The Draft Communications Data Bill – on everyone’s lips of late, our profile with Sir David Omand, former head of the UK’s GCHQ, gives a pertinent insight into the security threats we hear about – and those we don’t.
The three Rs“Law enforcement agencies need to be able to track the bad guys on the internet: the cyber criminals but also the dictators, terrorists, child abuse networks, people smugglers, drug traffickers and all the other enemies of an open society,” Sir David says.
But he is equally adamant that this must not be to the detriment of the public’s privacy: “Security and privacy are not alternatives. We need both and we can have both if we stick to the three Rs: rule of law, regulation and oversight, and restraint in their use.”
“It took only a few years for the internet to become irreversibly enmeshed into our financial life and for the criminals to latch on”From Cold War to cyber warSir David’s illustrious career at GCHQ, Britain’s foremost intelligence and security agency, began in 1969 after leaving Cambridge University with a degree in economics. Among his many crucial tasks was worrying, as he says, about the defence issues of the Cold War and the UK’s nuclear deterrence strategy.
Today, his concerns are mainly about cyber warfare: “The potential for interstate tensions and conflict has not disappeared; it has just taken different forms. Nations can, for example, protect and hide behind proxy terror groups and cyber criminal gangs to cause difficulties for nations they see as their adversaries.”
“In the UK, we are highly vulnerable to such attacks. It took only a few years for the internet to become irreversibly enmeshed into our financial life and for the criminals to latch on.”
Read more about Sir David’s fascinating career in the December edition of the
S&IR.
Once you have read our profile and the rest of the print edition, keep returning to the digital edition, which is regularly updated with news, features and comment about the CISI and the financial services industry.
All members, excluding student members, are eligible to receive the quarterly print edition of the magazine.Members who have opted out of receiving the print edition can change their preferences within MyCISI via the Communications Preferences tab to receive the print edition again as of the next issue.
Read the full article from December 2015 in our archive.