Patel warns of China’s growing spy threat

Official secrets laws to be modernised to deal with evolving tactics such as hacking and online trolling

‘Spying now has a much further reach, including into our universities and businesses’

‘We will no longer tolerate the brazen way we have seen our national security subject to such activities’

PRITI PATEL has accused China of spying on British universities and businesses, declaring that the UK would not tolerate such “brazen” interference.

The Home Secretary said official secrets laws would be modernised to take account of new spy threats such as hack-and-leak and online trolling to pursue a state’s ends to steal secrets or destablise the UK.

Although she did not mention China by name in her speech to the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation in Washington, it is understood she was referring to the Asian nation as she warned “espionage is evolving”.

“Governments continue to spy on each other, but spying now has a much further reach, including into our universities and businesses,” she said.

“It is not inherently improper for countries to try to influence each other, but we can never allow national security to be compromised. Despite the power of one of the most significant threats to our security continues to be – malign interference.

“The activities of those hidden relationships where public figures are encouraged to push another country’s interests, hack-and-leak operations, covert surveillance and organised online trolling.

“We in the UK will no longer tolerate the brazen way we have seen our national security subject to such activities. Our upcoming legislation will represent the biggest counter state threats legislation in decades.”

She said she would not hesitate to call out “malicious” state or state-backed organisations in Russia, China, and Iran.

Ms Patel cited how the UK revealed the Chinese were behind a computer hack via 250,000 Microsoft Exchange servers accessing email accounts, acquiring data, and deploying malware.

She said the UK would continue to hold China to account through a 2015 bilateral agreement setting out acceptable behaviour in cyberspace with China. “In December 2018, the UK and 14 other countries called out China’s Ministry of State Security for breaching the agreement,” she said.

Other cases included an Iranian diplomat’s bomb plot to blow up dissidents in Paris and an Iranian kidnap bid in New York. “All of this shows that complacency is not an option,” said Ms Patel.

In the wake of the Liverpool women’s hospital terror attack last Sunday, she warned that terrorism was also “mutating” and could be inspired in a “battleground or a bedroom”.

Disclosing that 31 terror plots had been foiled since 2017 in the UK, she said plans by social media firms led by Facebook to extend end-to-end encryption where neither the platform operator nor law enforcement could see the content of messages “jeopardises the good work that has gone before”.

She warned that freedom of speech did not include the right to incite terrorism and “reasonable” people would expect police to be able to track and tackle terrorist or child abuse content.

“Merely removing offending accounts from a platform is nowhere near good enough and social media companies need to take greater responsibility for the harms they are responsible for,” she said.

“Our Online Safety Bill will place on technology companies a binding duty of care for their users. End-to-end encryption will not release companies from that duty.”