Government Communications Headquarters

'The Doughnut', the GCHQ building at Benhall, Cheltenham.

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is a British signals intelligence (sigint) agency.

History

Government Code & Cypher School

The Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS) was founded in 1919 as Britain's first integrated cryptographic agency.

GC&CS was redesignated the London Signals Intelligence Centre in 1946, following a move from its wartime centre at Bletchley Park to Eastcote.

GCHQ

The organisation formally took the name Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), previously in use as a cover name, on 1 November 1948.

ABC Trial

GCHQ's activities received little publicity until 1976, when Duncan Campbell probed its activities in Cyprus for Time Out magazine. The subsequent prosecution under the Official Secrets Act became known as the ABC Trial.

Geoffrey Prime affair

A former GCHQ employee Geoffrey Prime was convicted of spying for the KGB in 1982.

The Zircon project

British dependence on American satellites during the Falklands War led GCHQ director Brian Tovey to propose a British spy satellite, Zircon.

In early 1987, BBC director general Alasdair Milne, banned a documentary by Duncan Campbell, who had discovered the existence of the Zircon project and the fact that Parliament knew nothing about it.

By 1988, the British government opted instead to pay £500 million to guarantee access to American satellites.

Union ban

Trade unions were bannned from GCHQ by the Thatcher government in January 1984, prompting a long-running dispute.

Al-Saadi case

In April 2015, GCHQ was ordered to destroy legally privileged communications it unlawfully collected from a Libyan rendition victim, Sami al-Saadi.

Personnel and Organisation

Directors

• Sir Edward Travis - 1944-1952
• Sir Eric Jones - 1952-1960
• Sir Clive Loehnis - 1960-64
• Sir Leonard Hooper - 1965-1973
• Sir Arthur Bonsall - 1973-1978
• Sir Brian Tovey - 1978-1983
• Sir Peter Marychurch - 1983-1989
• Sir John Adye - 1989-1996
• Sir David Omand - 1996-1997
• Sir Kevin Tebbit - 1998
• Sir Francis Richards - 1998-2003
• Sir David Pepper - 2003-2008
• Sir Iain Lobban - 2008-2014, appointed in April 2015 as a financial crime investigator for Standard Chartered
• Robert Hannigan - 2014
• Sir Jeremy Fleming since April 2017

SIGINT Missions

According to a diagram of GCHQ's 1998 organisation in Richard Aldrich's book on the agency, SIGINT Missions was one of four major divisions of its work under the corporate board. it encompassed:

• Maths and Cryptanalysis.
• IT and Computer Services.
• Linguists and Translation.
• Intelligence Analysis Unit & Open Source Joint Working Group.

Enterprise

According to Aldrich, Enterprise was a major division of GCHQ's 1998 organisation under the corporate board. It included:

• Applied Research and Emerging Technologies.
• Corporate Knowledge and Information Services.
• Commercial Supplier Relationships.
• Biometrics.

Corporate Management

According to Aldrich, Corporate management was a major division of GCHQ's 1998 organisation under the corporate board. It encompassed:

• Enterprise Resource Planning System.
• Human Resources (Broadreach).
• Internal audit.
• SINEWS Architecture Team.

Communications-Electronics Security Group

According to Aldrich, the Communications-Electronic Security Group was a major division of GCHQ's 1998 organisation under the corporate board.

Miscellaneous Units and Projects

It is not known where or whether the following units and projects fit within Aldrich's schema:

• Global Telecoms Exploitation (GTE)
• Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group
• Human Science Operations Cell
• Mastering the Internet (MTI)
• Tempora
• Special Source Exploitation
• Cyber Defence Operations, formerly Network Defence Intelligence and Security Team
• Internet Operations Centre (INOC)
• Joint Cyber Unit
• National Cyber Security Centre

Website

http://www.gchq.gov.uk/

External resources

• Duncan Campbell and Mark Hosenball, The Eavesdroppers, Time Out, 1976, archived at duncancampbell.org
• Nick Hopkins, UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation, guardian.co.uk, 7 June 2013.
• Richard Norton-Taylor, Intelligence-gathering by British state out of control, guardian.co.uk, 11 June 2013.
• Ewen MacAskill, Nick Davies, Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger and James Ball, GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G20 summits, The Guardian, 17 June 2013.
• Ewen MacAskill, Julian Borger, Nick Hopkins, Nick Davies and James Ball, GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications, guardian.co.uk, 21 June 2013.
• Nick Davies, MI5 feared GCHQ went 'too far' over phone and internet monitoring, The Observer, 22 June 2013.
• Christian Stöcker, GCHQ Surveillance: The Power of Britain's Data Vacuum, Spiegel Online, 7 July 2013.
• James Cusick, GCHQ spying programme: Spy watchdog ‘is understaffed and totally ineffective’, Independent, 14 July 2013.
• Nick Hopkins and Julian Borger, Exclusive: NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ, The Guardian, 1 August 2013.
• Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger and Luke Harding, Exclusive: NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ, The Guardian, 1 August 2013.
• Duncan Campbell, Oliver Wright, James Cusick, Kim Sengupta, Exclusive: UK’s secret Mid-East internet surveillance base is revealed in Edward Snowden leaks, Independent, 23 August 2013.
• John Goetz, Hans Leyendecker and Frederik Obermaier, British Officials Have Far-Reaching Access To Internet And Telephone Communications, Süddeutsche Zeitung International, 28 August 2013.
• James Ball, Leaked memos reveal GCHQ efforts to keep mass surveillance secret, The Guardian, 25 October 2013.
• Quantum Spying: GCHQ Used Fake LinkedIn Pages to Target Engineers, Spiegel Online, 11 November 2013.
• James Ball, GCHQ and NSA targeted charities, Germans, Israeli PM and EU chief, The Guardian, 20 December 2013.