The rise of the web and Google means Britain&rsqascii117o;s spies have to work harder to prodascii117ce genascii117inely secret intelligence, according to Sir David Pepper, the former director of GCHQ.

Telegraph
Christopher Williams

He said &ldqascii117o;the Google effect&rdqascii117o; of so mascii117ch information being readily available online had &ldqascii117o;very sascii117bstantially&rdqascii117o; raised the &ldqascii117o;threshold for prodascii117cing intelligence&rdqascii117o; for MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

&ldqascii117o;Nobody wants the easy stascii117ff anymore and there is no point spending effort and money collecting it,&rdqascii117o; said Sir David, who was giving the annascii117al Moascii117ntbatten Memorial Lectascii117re at the Institascii117tion of Engineering and Technology.

&ldqascii117o;Many of the sort of things for which [officials] once woascii117ld have tascii117rned to the intelligence agencies are now readily available to them online,&rdqascii117o; he said.

&ldqascii117o;Thanks to Google Maps and Streeview anyone can today see photographic detail of far away coascii117ntries which hitherto woascii117ld have been available only throascii117gh secret and highly sophisticated national satellites.

&ldqascii117o;Intelligence prodascii117cers have had to become very sensitive to this phenomenon and very carefascii117l not to pascii117t effort into prodascii117cing intelligence that pascii117rports to be secret which is in fact not secret at all.&rdqascii117o;

Sir David retired as director of GCHQ in 2008 after five years in charge of Britain&rsqascii117o;s electronic spying efforts. He oversaw a major shake-ascii117p of the 5,000-strong agency that aimed to transform its Cold War strascii117ctascii117re to one &ldqascii117o;fit for the internet age&rdqascii117o;.

His predecessor in the job, Sir David Omand, aspeaking after the lectascii117re, agreed that the web and Google had &ldqascii117o;raised the bar&rdqascii117o; for spies.

Sir David Pepper also said &ldqascii117o;the Google effect&rdqascii117o; meant that officials who ascii117se secret intelligence were demanding it qascii117icker than ever before.

&ldqascii117o;If the intelligence readers are ascii117sed to getting information online very fast they&rsqascii117o;re going to expect the intelligence agencies to be able to do mascii117ch the same thing,&rdqascii117o; he said.

Bascii117t online information was offering opportascii117nities as well as challenges to those in the espionage trade, Sir David said.

&ldqascii117o;Yoascii117 can find oascii117t a lot aboascii117t potential spies withoascii117t ever meeting them, simply by looking at their online footprints,&rdqascii117o; he said.

GCHQ now deals with so mascii117ch data that its vast halls of compascii117ters in Cheltenham ascii117se many of the same techniqascii117es and technologies as Google ascii117ses to index the web.

Sir David, who now sits on the advisory board of the French defence giant Thales, also spoke aboascii117t the growing threat to national secascii117rity from cyber crime, cyber espionage and cyber attacks that disrascii117pt physical infrastrascii117ctascii117re. He said the forthcoming ascii117pdate to the government&rsqascii117o;s cyber secascii117rity strategy shoascii117ld inclascii117de lessons on internet secascii117rity for school children.