Security clearance

Spy agency speeds up vetting in race for recruits

The UK’s eavesdropping agency GCHQ is rapidly increasing the number of officers responsible for vetting new recruits after it failed to hit personnel targets last year in the face of intense competition for talent from banks and tech companies. Intelligence chiefs have warned that promising young spies and code crackers are being put off by the drawn-out process of obtaining security clearance and the lure of big money jobs with established tech companies such as Google and Facebook and big city firms. GCHQ’s “developed vetting” process is the highest level of security clearance in the UK and includes a rigorous assessment of whether anything in a candidate’s background risks placing them in “a compromising position due to conscience or undue influence”.