Not to be confused with HM Government Communications Centre or Conservative Campaign Headquarters.
Government Communications Headquarters
The Doughnut from above in 2017
Agency overview
Formed
1 November 1919; 104 years ago (1919-11-01) (as Government Code and Cypher School)
Preceding agencies
MI1b (Army)
NID25 (Royal Navy)
Jurisdiction
His Majesty's Government
Headquarters
The Doughnut Hubble Road Cheltenham, England United Kingdom 51°53′58″N2°07′28″W / 51.89944°N 2.12444°W / 51.89944; -2.12444
Employees
7,181[1]
Annual budget
Single Intelligence Account £3.711 billion in 2021–2022)[1]
Minister responsible
David Cameron, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Agency executive
Anne Keast-Butler, Director of GCHQ
Child agencies
National Cyber Security Centre
Composite Signals Organisation
Website
www.gchq.gov.uk
Footnotes
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom.[2] Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Foreign Secretary), but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.
GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS)[3] and was known under that name until 1946. During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park, where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes. There are two main components of GCHQ, the Composite Signals Organisation (CSO), which is responsible for gathering information, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is responsible for securing the UK's own communications. The Joint Technical Language Service (JTLS) is a small department and cross-government resource responsible for mainly technical language support and translation and interpreting services across government departments. It is co-located with GCHQ for administrative purposes.
In 2013, GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting all online and telephone data in the UK via the Tempora programme.[4] Snowden's revelations began a spate of ongoing disclosures of global surveillance. The Guardian newspaper was forced to destroy computer hard drives with the files Snowden had given them because of the threats of a lawsuit under the Official Secrets Act.[5] In June 2014, The Register reported that the information the government sought to suppress by destroying the hard drives related to the location of a "beyond top secret" GCHQ internet monitoring base in Seeb, Oman, and the close involvement of BT and Cable & Wireless in intercepting internet communications.[6]
^ ab"Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament "Annual Report 2021–2022"" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 December 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
^GCHQ – Welcome to GCHQ Archived 22 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Government of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
^Headrick, Daniel R. (1991) The invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics 1851-1945, Oxford UP p219
^"A simple guide to GCHQ's internet surveillance programme Tempora". Wired UK. 24 June 2013. Archived from the original on 15 May 2016. Retrieved 29 August 2017.
^Borger, Julian (21 August 2013). "NSA files: why the Guardian in London destroyed hard drives of leaked files". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 4 February 2017. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
^Campbell, Duncan (3 June 2014). "Revealed: GCHQ's beyond top secret middle eastern internet spy base". The Register. Archived from the original on 25 June 2014. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
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Jeremy Fleming named as new GCHQ head". Sky News. Retrieved 11 June 2021. "Anne Keast-Butler to be first female director at GCHQ". BBC News. 11 April 2023...
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practice of global surveillance include those in Australia (ASD), Britain (GCHQ), Canada (CSE), Denmark (PET), France (DGSE), Germany (BND), Italy (AISE)...
wrote that GCHQ "most likely provided Obama with transcripts of Trump's calls. The NSA has given GCHQ full 24/7 access to its computers, so GCHQ — a foreign...
intelligence and cryptography agency the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and established the UK's National Cyber Security Centre. His sudden resignation...
who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). In 2003, she leaked top-secret information to The Observer concerning a...
system that is used by the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). This system is used to buffer most Internet communications that are extracted...
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in January 1964 when all ministries' civilian interception sites came under its control. GCHQ Cheadle continued to monitor...
responsibility". GCHQ. 23 March 2016. Archived from the original on 7 July 2018. Retrieved 25 May 2017. Day-to-day ministerial responsibility for GCHQ lies with...
Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service [1984] UKHL 9, or the GCHQ case, is a United Kingdom constitutional law and UK labour law case that...
1978 – c. 16 August 2010) was a Welsh mathematician and Junior Analyst for GCHQ on secondment to the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) who was found...
II. In the post-war period, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was formed and participated in programmes such as the Five Eyes collaboration...
attack upon the UK. Parvin has just started a one-year student-placement at GCHQ when a cyber-attack takes down some of the UK-internet and she joins the...
Opsi.gov.uk. 4 July 2011. Retrieved 4 February 2014. "History of GCHQ Cheltenham". GCHQ website 'About Us' pages. Archived from the original on 5 October...
Constabulary (RUC). In 2008, the BBC reported that British intelligence agency GCHQ was monitoring conversations between the bombers as the bomb was being driven...
The Guardian's offices were then visited in July by agents from the UK's GCHQ, who supervised the destruction of the hard drives containing information...
from GCHQ due to ill health and the couple moved to Crail in Fife where they lived at Priorscroft, 14 Nethergate. They returned to work at GCHQ in 1962...
FSB MSS GCHQ Places The Doughnut Fort Meade Menwith Hill Pine Gap Southern Cross Cable Utah Data Center Bad Aibling Station Dagger Complex GCHQ Bude Laws...
signal intercept networks of the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the US National Security Agency (NSA) at the beginning of the Cold War...
Global Information
