Hoaxer posing as GCHQ chief chats to PM on his phone
DOWNING Street and the security services were facing embarrassment last night after a hoax caller claiming to be the head of spy agency GCHQ was put through to David Cameron.
The call followed a separate astonishing security lapse earlier in the day when a caller was given a mobile number for GCHQ director Robert Hannigan after he rang the organisation.
Later, a caller rang Downing Street pretending to be Mr Hannigan and was put through to the Prime Minister on an official mobile phone.
Mr Cameron eventually hung up after a ‘quite brief’ conversation when he realised he was the victim of a hoax call.
Downing Street last night insisted no confidential information had been disclosed by the Prime Minister. But both No 10 and GCHQ, which eavesdrops on the phone calls of terror suspects and criminals, launched immediate inquiries into the security breach.
Last night no one had claimed responsibility for either of the calls. It was unclear if they were by the same person.
Attention is likely to focus on computer hackers or self-styled internet privacy campaigners unhappy with the Prime Minister’s stance on state surveillance.
In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, he has called for greater powers to allow GCHQ to monitor the content of calls, emails and social media. He provoked alarm among some privacy campaigners by suggesting services such as WhatsApp should not be able to encrypt messages in a way they cannot be read by spies.
A Government spokesman said: ‘Following two hoax calls to Government departments today, a notice has gone out to all departments to be on the alert for such calls.
‘In the first instance, a call was made to GCHQ which resulted in the disclosure of a mobile phone number for the director. The mobile number provided is never used for calls involving classified information. In the second instance, a hoax caller claiming to be the GCHQ director was connected to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister ended the call when it became clear it was a hoax.’
It is understood that the number given out for Mr Hannigan was for an unclassified phone rather than one of the secure lines used for sensitive communications.
Mr Cameron is not the first high profile victim of a prank call.
A hoaxer in December 2012 sparked tragedy when an Australian radio station succeeded in getting through to a hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for morning sickness. The prank led to the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, who took her own life after transferring the call.
In 1995, the Queen spoke to a prank caller for 17 minutes – believing the person was the Canadian prime minister. During the call, taken at Buckingham Palace, she promised the man, who claimed to be Jean Chretien, that she would try to influence a referendum being held in Canada. In fact, the caller was a Canadian impressionist Pierre Brassard calling on behalf of radio station CKOI FM in Montreal.
Former prime minister Tony Blair also fell for a prank call from a radio station. In 1998, he took a call which he believed to be from then Tory leader William Hague. The caller was in fact Steve Penk – a DJ from Capital FM. Within moments, Mr Blair realised that the call was a fake but played along with the joke.