MI6 Facebook | 07/08/2009 9:35 am
Wife of Britain's Incoming Spy Chief Blows His Cover With Facebook Page

Some sharing is simply too much sharing when it comes to who sees what on the Internet. In this case, the wife of Britain’s incoming MI6 intelligence agency may have shared a little too much about her family on her Facebook page.
Sir John Sawers was in a bit of hot water after his wife Shelley posted information about the couple’s London apartment, their three kids, friends and where they go on vacation. She even posted photos of her hubby on the beach wearing swimming shorts, and photos of him at family gatherings. There were even comments from relatives joking they would soon be calling Sawers "Uncle C." "C" is what the MI6 chief is commonly called. Mrs. Sawers reportedly didn’t activate the privacy settings that would only let a select group of approved Facebook friends see the photos. Instead, up to 4 million people on Facebook’s "London" network could get a glimpse of the spymaster; there are roughly 200 million Facebook users worldwide. Sawers, currently the UK ambassador to the United Nations in New York, is set to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all of Britain’s spying operations abroad. The Telegraph reports that there were calls from MPs for an inquiry into the lapse and questions over how the information was not picked up during the extensive security vetting process before Sawers’ appointment.
"Normally, I would welcome greater openness in government for officials or politicians but this type of exposure verges on the reckless," Edward Davy, the Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman, told The Mail.
The Mail says there are now fears that the blunder may have compromised the safety of Sawers’s family and friends. Mrs. Sawers’s postings also exposed the couple’s friendships with senior diplomats and well-known actors, and revealed that her husband’s brother-in-law is an associate of controversial right-wing, Holocaust-denying historian David Irving. Professor Anthony Glees, director of Buckingham University Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, told The Daily Mail the Sawers family would almost certainly need to be re-housed and the children might require extra protection.
"It is a most distressing and unfortunate security lapse that will take a great deal of money to put right," he said.























47 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
People "Internet-Ignorant?" What about our US agencies without enough security to protect their communication systems? Now, that is dumer than dumb - STUPID.
"Isn’t it possible C that she, as some do thought only her friends and family could see it."
SG, I have to agree with you. As a programmer analyst, I’ve had the …interesting experience…of dealing with a lot of software users … it’s amazing, the things that you see. Personally, unless I see evidence of an "ulterior motive" as some have suggested, I’m inclined to think this woman simply wasn’t familiar with the technology, or as familiar as she needed to be (which, btw, doesn’t mean that she’s stupid, as some have said)…