Headquarters

Command center for an organization

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2023 Anne Keast-Butler appointed as the new head of GCHQ, taking over from Sir Jeremy Fleming.
May 25 2021 The European Court of Human Rights ruled that GCHQ violated data privacy rules through bulk communication interception and insufficient protections for confidential journalistic material.
October 2020 Intelligence and security expert John Ferris publishes 'Behind the Enigma: The Authorised History of GCHQ, Britain's Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency'.
October 2018 GCHQ publishes a second puzzle book.
October 31 2018 GCHQ joined Instagram, expanding its social media presence.
2017 US Press Secretary Sean Spicer made unfounded allegations that GCHQ had surveilled US President Donald Trump, which were later formally apologized for by the US government.
2017 Sir Jeremy Fleming becomes the head of GCHQ, succeeding Robert Hannigan.
2016 The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) was established under GCHQ, located in London. This new center absorbed and replaced multiple existing cybersecurity entities including CESG, the Centre for Cyber Assessment (CCA), Computer Emergency Response Team UK (CERT UK), and the cyber-related responsibilities of the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI).
2016 GCHQ publishes the GCHQ Puzzle Book, which sells more than 300,000 copies, with proceeds going to charity.
2015 The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) reported that a small number of GCHQ staff had misused their surveillance powers, resulting in the dismissal of at least one staff member.
2015 Documents from Edward Snowden revealed GCHQ's mass-surveillance operation KARMA POLICE, which had been collecting internet users' IP addresses since around 2008.
2015 GCHQ's online cryptic challenge attracts over 600,000 attempts.
2015 The Investigatory Powers Tribunal found GCHQ acted unlawfully by conducting surveillance on two human rights organizations: the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Legal Resources Centre in South Africa.
2015 GCHQ conceded that its regime for handling legally privileged material from January 2010 was unlawful, in a case brought by Abdelhakim Belhaj and Fatima Bouchard regarding their alleged unlawful abduction in 2004.
2015 GCHQ admitted in court for the first time that it conducts computer hacking.
February 2015 The Investigatory Powers Tribunal stated that GCHQ's data-sharing arrangement with US surveillance programmes had previously contravened human rights law, until additional procedural details were disclosed in December 2014.
2014 Robert Hannigan became Director of GCHQ and wrote an article in the Financial Times arguing for greater cooperation between intelligence agencies and tech companies in addressing terrorism and criminal activities online.
December 2014 The Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that GCHQ does not breach the European Convention of Human Rights, finding its activities compliant with Articles 8 and 10.
June 2014 The Register reported on government attempts to suppress information about a top-secret GCHQ internet monitoring base in Seeb, Oman, after The Guardian was forced to destroy computer hard drives containing Snowden's files.
February 2014 NBC and The Intercept exposed GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group and Computer Network Exploitation units, which conducted cyber operations using 'dirty tricks' to disrupt enemy communications and plant misinformation.
February 2014 The Guardian revealed GCHQ had collected 1.8 million private Yahoo webcam images indiscriminately from users worldwide, based on Snowden documents.
2013 GCHQ acknowledged changing public attitudes towards signals intelligence and began transforming its approach, expanding its Public Relations and Legal departments, and adopting public cyber security education as part of its organizational mission.
2013 Edward Snowden revealed that GCHQ was collecting all online and telephone data in the UK via the Tempora programme, sparking global surveillance disclosures.
2013 The Justice and Security Act was passed, expanding the functions of the Intelligence and Security Committee to provide enhanced access and investigatory powers for oversight of intelligence activities.
June 2010 GCHQ gained access to the US internet monitoring program PRISM, which provided surveillance capabilities on major internet companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.
March 2010 GCHQ was criticized by the Intelligence and Security Committee for IT security problems and failing to meet cyber attack prevention targets.

This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article GCHQ, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.