It is always a case of some considerable concern when a lady reveals too much on Facebook. The site has standards, after all.
The lady in question this time is Lady Shelley Sawers, the wife of Sir John Sawers, the new head of British spy agency MI6.
According to reports in the Mail and numerous other media outlets, the fair lady may not have been quite aware that Facebook can be seen by a rather large number of people if you don't specify that you want to keep your information vaguely private.
Lady Sawers saw fit to wander onto the site and reveal where their London apartment is located and where their children are. This might not appear to be the wisest course of social action if your children happen to be the offspring of the head of an international spying network.
Lady Sawers even posted 19 happy pictures of the family's last vacation.
(Credit:
CC Anonymous9000/Flickr)
These pictures seemed to have spurred the her enthusiasm for uploading, as, the following day, she furnished 26 more, including shots of Sir John in his swimming attire. She apparently displayed several pictures of Sir John hanging with some actors, even one thespian who performed in that apogee of popular English culture, the TV series "Footballers' Wives."
According to the reports, Lady Sawers' Facebook account had no privacy protection. All those in the highly open "London" network could espy the head spy in his swimming cozzie.
Moreover, Sir John, who by tradition will be code-named "C," received notes of congratulations on his wife's Facebook page. One note, for example: "Congrats on the new job, already dubbed Sir Uncle "C" by nephews in the know!"
When the Mail contacted the British Foreign Office to alert them to the socially networked revelations, everything was sharpishly effaced without a trace.
Now, I know that there will be those who will feel critical of Lady Sawers' remarkable trust in the Web's world-wideness.
However, I feel her actions show a considerable faith in her husband's skills in weeding out nefarious bodies from the dark camouflage of life. And her social openness is surely sending a clear message to those who do Britain ill that the fine old country fears nothing and no one.
Web 2.0 activists keep repeating that there is no such thing as privacy. Now the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6 as it tends to be known in movies, has declared that it is using Web 2.0's finest creation, Facebook, in order to find new devotees.
A spokesperson for the UK's Foreign Office whispered: "The Secret Intelligence Service's open recruitment campaign continues to target wide pools of talent representative of British society today. A number of channels are used to promote job opportunities in the organisation. Facebook is a recent example."
This causes my brow to contort somewhat uncomfortably.
The whole ethos of spying seems to me to have, at its heart, a certain penchant for, well, covertness. When I was studying at one of the UK's more filmic universities, friends of mine would receive letters that suggested an "opportunity in the field of foreign trade" or some such discreet double parlance. They would then be invited to tea with a rather nondescript man whose pallid features would suggest he lived in a place called Nondies Crypt.
They would be told they would not be required to kill anyone and that their ability to read people and keep secrets was what would bond them to the Service.
Times have clearly changed. While James Bond continues to wear swimming attire that is at least one size too snug, MI6 is branching out into truly uncharted waters.
The ads themselves are deceptively simple. For example: "Time for a career change? MI6 can use your skills. Join us as an operational officer collecting and analysing global intelligence to protect the UK."
But there is already more of an MI6 presence on Facebook than you might have imagined.
Perhaps you, too, have perused Facebook's Secret Intelligence Service Group. It is now more than 700 strong. And the names of those interested are there for all to see.
The Group's blood pressure is already rising: "In a world of growing technology, hacking capability and information gathering...our government now see's fit to not only lose info, but to now display its potential applicant and employees details on one of the largest social networking sites in the world....oh yes, including full facial recognition for some of you too....," writes Andy Leavy from England's West Midlands.
Robyn-Elizabeth Tippetts (with that name, clearly a shoo-in), however, declares: "I want to apply, any advice on what I should be doing, education-wise? I will be going into University very soon."
I am concerned that MI6's rather avant-garde attempt to find the most diplomatically-forward recruits might not bear quite the most mentally-forward fruit.
As I mentioned not so long ago, Sir Edmund Bunton, the Chairman of the UK's Information Advisory Council, railed at the Facebook Generation's utter disregard for discretion. He declared young people's careless habits were responsible for the fact that the Ministry of Defense has lost 55 laptops (many left in cars overnight) in recent times.
On the other hand, perhaps this bold move signals the arrival of a new trend towards open, public, even socially-networked spying. Perhaps we are about to enjoy a new era of espionage, one in which we will observe the machinations of the covert live on our laptops, as if it were a never-ending Bourne Identity.
It will be interesting, indeed, to see how many of the new Facebook-sourced MI6 recruits will be unusually photogenic.
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