Hello,
For the first time in history, the intelligence leaders of the Five Eyes countries (Australia, Canada, the UK, USA and New Zealand) have gathered together in public. The quintet met in California for an unprecedented event at the Hoover Institute to discuss innovation and emerging technology, and to launch the Five Principles. Opening the event, FBI Director Chris Wray was frank, saying:
“[This] unprecedented meeting is because we're dealing with another unprecedented threat, and there is no greater threat to innovation than the Chinese government. And it is a measure of how seriously the five of us and our services take that threat that we have chosen to come together to try to highlight that and raise awareness, raise resilience, and work closely with the private sector to try to build better protection.”
Over the course of an hour, Secretary Condoleezza Rice interviewed:
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director-General Mike Burgess
British Security Service (MI5) Director General Ken McCallum
Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director David Vigneault
New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) Director-General Andrew Hampton
Today’s short note sets out the key remarks from MI5’s McCallum, and the actions rolling out of the event.
As MI5’s chief said:
“If you are working at the cutting edge of technology today, you might not be interested in geopolitics. But geopolitics is certainly interested in you.”
KEY QUOTES
On China and MI5’s focus
“[We] shouldn't be necessarily…foaming with moral outrage that states look to gain advantage. But our job is to look to protect what we see as the crucial advantages that our democratic nations enjoy today. Emerging Technologies have such potential to change our world in quite fundamental ways that I think we should all care about where that power flows and goes.”
On Geopolitics and technology
“If you are working at the cutting edge of technology today, you might not be interested in geopolitics. But geopolitics is certainly interested in you.”
On what areas are being targetted by the Chinese Government
“But these days [MI5’s protection role]… it is no longer about government and a small number of large companies. It is about raw research taking place at universities just like Stanford, it’s about promising start up companies, it's about innovative spin out doing things off the back of research taking place on our universities. And so lots of people - who perfectly understandably may not previously have thought that national security had anything to do with them - do need to think about this in a new way.”
On the role of the National Protective Security Authority
“There's a special part of MI5 - National Protective Security Authority - that looks to share guidance and advice with our private sector with our universities. And the point of that advice is, it's not a list of things that we sort of draw up in our own bunker in MI5: those bits of guidance are co-created with people in the sectors to be pragmatic, to be workable, to avoid stifling thevery openness and innovation that you're trying to protect in the first place.”
On how the group’s adversaries use AI
“When it comes to AI use by our adversaries, I think there's a limited extent to which I want to give ideas to bad people. But as Chris [Wray, FBI Chief] has reflected there, there is real concern amongst our organisations that AI over time and potentially sooner than we might think will give various of our adversaries - both sophisticated adversaries and less sophisticated new ideas, new access to dangerous knowledge.”
On MI5’s “legal” use of AI
“Coming back to something you mentioned towards the start of our conversation, the flip side of course, is that used ethically, lawfully, intelligently, AI can help organisations like ours protect our societies. You know, in MI5, for example, just to use an example that’s not right at the cutting edge but that gives a flavour:
We collect thousands and thousands of hours of audio data in lots of interesting places every, every week, every month. I won't get into - you can imagine the tiny microphones that we might plant - lawfully - in certain locations to achieve that. But what that means is we end up with a lot of audio product that we need quickly to translate into knowledge that is searchable. And the best means of doing that is to have AI scan across the material that you have, translate into the language that you need to analyse it in, and rapidly pick out the things that might be clues to activity of concern. So all of these things, even in our particular domain, present real opportunities as well as risks.”
On how MI5 recruits talent
“So at MI5, and its partner agencies in the UK, we look to recruit the best talent based on the compelling nature of our mission. We are there to keep our country safe. When people join MI5 on their first day and I get the chance to talk to them, I say look, you are not going to be a billionaire working here. You're certainly not going to be famous. But you will have the chance to spend your time working alongside other dedicated, selfless people in a noble cause and that is the primary way in which we manage to reach very talented people who undoubtedly could earn more in other walks of life. But we do succeed in managing to recruit and retain some really capable talented people and it's a pleasure for me to have a moment here to pay tribute to them. Alongside which, we also work in close partnership with talented people in other contexts: in universities, in startups, in larger companies, because we don't always need to have all of the talent locked into our permanent workforce. And so that ability to partner is central both to the way in which we try to help our economy protect itself, but it's also central to how we harness the best innovation.”
Via The Times, on operating in a new world
“We are in a different world now than the world we’ve all lived in since the end of the Cold War. Authoritarian states are behaving much more aggressively. We are at a historic moment where emerging technologies — AI, quantum computing, synthetic biology — are leaping forward in ways that will change our world at a pretty fundamental level. Of course, there is lots of hype around these technologies. But the nations that lead the way on them will command immense power and authoritarian states are laser focused on this.”
Via The Times, on catching spies
“Typically on state threats work over the last many years, we’ve often had to disrupt activity because it has been damaging but it has not always been possible to prove a serious criminal offence…We are now in a different position.”
KEY ACTIONS
The Five Principles
1. Know the Threats: Understand the way state-backed and hostile actors could try and get hold of your technology.
2. Secure your Environment: Create an effective system for security risk management, incorporating risk ownership, identification, assessment, and mitigation.
3. Secure your Products: Build security into your products from the start, and actively protect and manage your intellectual assets.
4. Secure your Partnerships: Manage the risks that partnerships with investors, suppliers, and collaborators can bring.
5. Secure your Growth : As your company grows, manage the security risks from entering new markets and expanding your workforce.
Expect to see more over the coming weeks around the British Intelligence Service’s new guidance, published by the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA).
Leaflet here
MEDIA RESPONSE
In a series of comments made after the panel, McCallum said that MI5 had now seen suspected Chinese agents approach over 20,000 people in the UK over professional networking sites like LinkedIn, in order to try to cultivate them to provide sensitive information. (BBC, Guardian). The Times newspaper appears to have incorrectly reported that it was 20,000 “officials.” The Guardian quoted the MI5 chief as saying: “Week by week, our teams detect massive amounts of covert activity by the likes of China in particular, but also Russia and Iran,”
The BBC added “In the last year, MI5 has also seen more than 20 instances of Chinese companies considering or actively trying to gain access to sensitive technology developed by UK companies and universities through investments or other means where the full role of China is hidden, often through complicated company structures. That has included at least two Chinese companies seeking to avoid the scrutiny required under law to access sensitive technology of UK companies undetected. Another Chinese company is believed to have acquired stolen research data from a top UK university. And there are thought to be attempts to bypass and undermine the management and regulatory controls at another two top institutions in order to access and influence cutting-edge research.”