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On the 'Offensive'

246. • • *** [these] include attribution-public attribution—they include working with other nations to call out Chinese malign activity in cyber space, they include technical advisories, [and] they include advice to companies to close off their capabilities.^[1]

     • ***.
       • ***^[2] ***.^[3]
     • Against the 'Digital and Technology' pillar
       • ***
247. Following the Spending Review, we were told that, since the National Cyber Force (NCF) had started operating, it had been able to expose and counter false narratives ***. Countering interference was cited as another area for the NCF ***.^[4]

 

Are SIS and GCHQ 'achieving'?

248. Although SIS and GCHQ were judged by the Cabinet Office to be meeting or exceeding most of their ICE targets on China in 2018, this seems largely due to expectation management, as most targets were set to 'some' or 'limited' contribution—so, although they met their targets, the targets themselves were set rather low.^[5]
249. When the Committee asked Director GCHQ in 2019 if he felt "that in the circumstances [GCHQ was] not doing too badly", the Director agreed with that assessment—but also said that it was still very much at the starting point.^[6] ***.^[7]
250. SIS noted that the 'coverage' targets in the 2018 ICE Plan had enabled it to start work, jointly with GCHQ and MI5, on ***—this, rather worryingly, implies that little had actually been achieved at that point.^[8] When, in 2019, we pressed on why there appeared to be so little work ***, GCHQ told us that:

     coverage leads directly to intelligence reporting, which can have an impact and does have an impact and affects the way we position the UK's policy, it affects the way we are conducting our international relations and it affects the way we are laying down our capability investments in the future. So *** then I think that is probably a more precise way of thinking about that. The answer to why so much [is directed] at *** at the moment is because ***.

     ***^[9]

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1. Oral evidence—GCHQ, *** October 2020.
2. Oral evidence—HMG, *** October 2020.
3. Oral evidence—HMG, *** October 2020.
4. Written evidence—GCHQ, 21 May 2021.
5. Written evidence—GCHQ, 12 June 2019.
6. Oral evidence—GCHQ, *** July 2019.
7. Written evidence—GCHQ, 12 June 2019.
8. Oral evidence—SIS, *** July 2019.
9. Oral evidence—GCHQ, *** July 2019.

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