Hidden cameras, microphones, and trackers are routinely being discovered in Whitehall offices, government cars, and diplomatic outposts, The i Paper has been told.
Finding bugs is “routine” across government sites for the dedicated “eavesdropping” unit within the Foreign Office tasked with finding covert devices.
The i Paper revealed this week that security officials found a hidden camera in a ceiling panel in a sensitive UK government building, renewing concerns about the threat of espionage by hostile states like China and Russia.
There are around 70 staff working for the UK National Authority for Counter-Eavesdropping (Nace), understood to regularly sweep government buildings and sites for bugs.
“The hunters would feel they were doing a bad job if they didn’t find something”, a Whitehall security source said.
The unit, which is also supported by the Ministry of Defence, is predominantly carrying out sweeps across confidential areas of government, with checks of less secretive buildings conducted periodically, or after any major refurbishments.
The covert device discovered by security officials in Whitehall had been placed in a ceiling panel at a building in Marsham Street, Victoria, in central London, that houses the Home Office and the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
The discovery sparked alarm because officials in the building had been involved in the controversial planning application for China’s proposed new mega-embassy in London.
There is no suggestion that Russia or China-linked actors are responsible for the device, but the discovery has raised fears over increasing espionage tactics pointed at UK government staff and officials.
Sweeping teams and where they operate
A senior cyber security official said that “too many” locations across the government’s portfolio need “frequent visits” by sweeping teams. They described previous instances where “lots of hidden recording equipment” has been discovered in government buildings.
The official said the discovery of recording devices is “not uncommon” but also not “necessarily regular” either.
A former UK intelligence source, who was tasked with protecting UK government sites from espionage, said all confidential areas of government are swept regularly.
“Some places are continuously monitored,” they said. “Others may be annual or after building works or construction.”
The former intelligence official said they had direct knowledge of occasions where the residencies and cars of UK government staff overseas have been “targets” of suspected bugging.
It comes after MPs were warned on Tuesday that a Chinese tracking device had been found in the Prime Minister’s car in 2022.
Its discovery during a sweep was first revealed by The i Paper in 2023, igniting serious national security concerns about the espionage threat posed by Chinese intelligence.
At least one SIM card capable of transmitting location data was discovered during a search of government and diplomatic vehicles. The geolocating device had been placed into a vehicle inside a sealed part imported from a supplier in China and installed by the vehicle manufacturer.
Charles Parton, of think-tank the Council on Geostrategy, told the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee on Tuesday that “the prime minister’s car in 2022 was emanating data to China through the cellular module”.
He claimed a senior member of the government who “knows whose car it was told me” but he did not name which of the three Tory prime ministers that year – Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak – was being targeted.
UK cannot be ‘complacent’ about espionage threat
Last autumn, Sir Ken McCallum used his annual speech to warn that state threats from China, Russia and Iran were escalating, with MI5 seeing a 35 per cent increase in the number of individuals it is investigating over the past year. Chinese state actors in particular, he said, present a daily national security threat to the UK, and he revealed that MI5 had recently intervened operationally to disrupt Chinese activity of national security concern.
Former UK intelligence official, Julian Fisher, said the latest espionage cases are “reminiscent” of the Cold War era and called on Whitehall to be “less complacent about the threat from espionage currently posed to the UK”.
He told The i Paper: “I fear that the early part of this century saw some relaxation of operational security standards, in the absence of a clearly defined threat.
“It may be time for departments across Whitehall and beyond to dust off old counter-intelligence guidance and for political leaders to be less complacent about the nature and extent of the espionage threat that we currently face.”
Only last week, the Five Eyes alliance – made up of agencies from the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – warned that Chinese spies are posing as recruitment agents to trick UK Government and military staff into disclosing state secrets. This included using legitimate websites such as LinkedIn to advertise fake analyst jobs.
The i Paper also revealed how the Ministry of Defence banned electric vehicles with Chinese components from sensitive sites and military training bases, after senior officials raised concerns that the vehicles could be tracked and that sensors in the cars could be used to gather intelligence and send it back to Beijing.
Other high-profile security breaches include the alleged hacking of Liz Truss’s phone by agents suspected of working for the Kremlin when she was foreign secretary. Cyber spies are believed to have gained access to top-secret exchanges with key international partners, as well as private conversations with her leading political ally, Kwasi Kwarteng.
The phone was so heavily compromised, it was placed in a locked safe at a secure government location, according to reports.
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