Head Of GCHQ Sir Iain Lobban To Leave By The End Of 2014

The head of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the intelligence agency tasked with monitoring digital signals that is implicated in the ongoing privacy scandal, is due to step down by the end of 2014.

The Foreign Office announced that the departure of Sir Iain Lobban was planned, and is in no way connected to the leak of sensitive documents which exposed the mass surveillance practices of GCHQ and the US National Security Agency (NSA).

According to the Guardian, the agency is still searching for Lobban’s replacement. It’s not known what the spymaster plans to do next.

Coincidence

Lobban, aged 53, has been working at GCHQ since 1983, and spent the last six years as its director. He was responsible for moving the agency into the new headquarters near Cheltenham, popularly known as “The Doughnut”.

Under Lobban’s leadership, the agency grew to become the centrepiece of British intelligence, capable of collecting and processing petabytes of data, on a par with its American colleagues at the NSA

Lobban was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath in 2006 and made Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2013, both for services to national security.

He was the first head of GCHQ to present evidence to the public, when he defended the extensive UK and US spying programmes in November. Lobban claimed that information disclosed by Snowden had damaged the counter-terrorism efforts, and would prompt suspects to switch to more secure methods of communication.

Ever since details of its spying programmes emerged in the summer 2013, GCHQ has been criticised by privacy campaigners for intrusive and indiscriminate collection of personal communications. In response, Lobban repeatedly said that GCHQ was not looking at data produced by ordinary citizens.

“Iain Lobban is doing an outstanding job as director GCHQ,” said a spokesman for the Foreign Office. “Today is simply about starting the process of ensuring we have a suitable successor in place before he moves on as planned at the end of the year,” said a Foreign Office spokesman.

Head of the NSA General Keith Alexander is also due to stand down later this year,

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