In Governmental Ghost Stories, the chills don’t come from creaking doors or sudden screams, but from the slow, clammy realisation that your digital life has more uninvited guests than a haunted manor on All Hallows’ Eve. It’s less The Conjuring and more Yes, Minister meets Dr. Strangelove in a dimly lit GCHQ break room.
The UK Investigatory Powers Act (IPA):
Or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the snooper’s charter
Back in the halcyon days of 2018, the European Court of Justice—those meddling EU types—had the audacity to point out that the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act (affectionately dubbed the Snooper’s Charter) was, in fact, unlawful. Quelle surprise.
Meanwhile, across the globe, Australia donned its own digital tinfoil hat and passed legislation giving law enforcement the magical ability to demand access to encrypted communications. Because nothing says “liberal democracy” like the ability to bust through the back door without so much as knocking.
Naturally, not to be outdone in the dystopia sweepstakes, GCHQ slithered forward with a proposal so ghastly even Sauron might have blushed: a “ghost protocol” to silently insert the state into private encrypted chats. Imagine your group chat, but with Big Brother lurking in the corner, sipping tea and silently judging your memes. A Man-in-the-Middle attack, but state-sponsored and blessed with all the gravitas of a passive-aggressive civil servant.
The spectre of silent surveillance
The brainchild of GCHQ director Ian Levy (clearly a man who’s watched Spectre one too many times) and his co-author Crispin Robinson, the ghost protocol envisioned a world where law enforcement could be “silently added” to encrypted calls and chats—sort of like a supernatural eavesdropper with a clipboard.
Published in the charmingly titled Principles for a More Informed Exceptional Access Debate (which is the intelligence community’s version of How to Lose Friends and Influence No One), this chilling proposal was slipped into public discourse under the pretence of transparency. Because nothing says “we value your opinion” like laying the table after the cake’s been eaten and the guests have fled.
The Letter: A cast of the usual suspects
In a plot twist worthy of a Netflix docudrama, 47 organisations and individuals wrote a strongly-worded letter to GCHQ, objecting to the whole “let’s secretly spy on people while pretending it’s all perfectly legal” plan. Among the signatories? Apple and Facebook. Yes, that Facebook.
You know—the same Facebook that hoovers up your data like a Dyson on steroids, reads your private messages, tracks your activity, and sells you out to the highest bidder, all under the shiny veneer of “community standards.” And let’s not forget Apple, gallantly posing as the knight in polished aluminium who believes in privacy—so long as it doesn’t affect quarterly profits.
It’s almost poetic, really: the surveillance capitalists penning a letter of concern about government surveillance, like a fox writing to Parliament to complain about wolf behaviour. “Dear Sirs, while we love the taste of poultry, your methods are simply too brutish.”
Silicon Valley’s own ghost protocol™
And here’s the real kicker: while GCHQ is busy designing ghostly guest passes to your encrypted convos, Silicon Valley has already perfected its own flavour of spectral snooping. The so-called “data science” business model isn’t just about targeted ads—it’s a full-blown séance where every click, comment, and message you send is summoned into a profile that’s sold, sliced, and served up to advertisers with unnerving precision.
Facebook is the ghost in your machine. Apple sells the haunted house and includes a privacy sticker on the front door. And the rest of us? We’re paying rent with our data and pretending it’s still our home.
Moral of the story?
Whether it’s the state or Silicon Valley, someone is always lurking in your group chat. And no amount of garlic, holy water, or GDPR is going to stop them from inviting themselves in.
Sleep tight.
