MI5 looking for new chief scientific adviser

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The MI5 is openly advertising for a chief scientific adviser for the first time. Britain’s foremost counterintelligence agency, which is also known as the Security Service, has posted the job advertisement on its website, and is asking interested individuals to submit applications by April 24. It also urges them to exercise discretion by discussing the application “only with [their] partner and/or immediate family”. The brief advertisement describes the “unique and challenging” mission of the new position as “lead[ing] and co-ordinat[ing] the scientific work of the Security Service”. The post is indicative of the agency’s increasing technological sophistication in its efforts to perform its counterintelligence and counterterrorism functions in an increasingly technologically based intelligence environment. One observer has described the new appointment as “an acknowledgement [by MI5] of the emerging threat of chemical, biological and radiological attack by terrorists and also the security threat to computer systems”. It is interesting, nonetheless, that the advertised post appears to be part-time, requiring only “a 2-3 day a week commitment”.