Case Study A11/7
MI6
Identify/target discovery
Agent recruitment
Summarised in the Operational Case
The SIAs were tasked by the Joint Intelligence Committee to produce intelligence on a
country which threatened the UK’s national security. MI6 was able to identify an
individual who might provide useful intelligence but needed a way to make contact with
that individual. A direct approach might have placed that person at risk from his country’s
own internal security service. Through the use of BPDs, MI6 was able to identify a third
person who could more safely make contact with the target individual. That third person
has successfully been recruited as an agent.
Case study A11/8
MI5
Identify/target discovery
Counter-terrorism
This case dated from 2004-5. MI5 sought to identify a member of Al Qaeda who was
believed to be a potential suicide operative in the UK. MI5 knew that he was British and
knew his approximate age; it also had some information relating to his previous travel.
The use of BPDs enabled the pool of potential candidates to be narrowed from 27,000
(based on the travel information), to 3,000 (using biographical and travel information
BPDs), then to 40 (using further travel information BPDs) and finally to one (using
passport data). Following extensive work by other methods to corroborate the belief that
the individual selected through BPDs was a potential suicide operative, MI5, working with
intelligence partners, disrupted this person’s activities. It believes that he subsequently
disengaged from Islamist extremism.
Case study A11/9
MI5/law enforcement agency
Identify/target discovery/action
Counter-terrorism
Summarised in the Operational Case
MI5 learned that an individual, in contact with a known extremist, was planning to travel
to Syria imminently. MI5 only had partial identifying details for the prospective traveller.
Analysis of the known extremist’s communications provided hundreds of contacts, any
one of which could have been the person of interest. Through the use of bulk BPDs,
within one day those hundreds were reduced to one candidate who matched the known
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