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China recruiting spies in the UK with fake headhunters and ‘sites like LinkedIn’. MI5 sounds the alarm about attempts to source sensitive information. Chinese spies are using social media and fake recruitment agents to recruit sources with access to sensitive information in the UK. "Security Minister Dan Jarvis yesterday told the House of Commons that intelligence service MI5 “issued an espionage alert to Members of this House, Members of the other place and parliamentary staff to warn them about ongoing targeting of our democratic institutions by Chinese actors.” Jarvis said the alert detailed China’s efforts “to recruit and cultivate individuals with access to sensitive information about Parliament and the UK Government.” “MI5 has stated that this activity is being carried out by a group of Chinese intelligence officers – often masked through the use of cover companies or external headhunters,” he added. A government statement said MI5 “named two online profiles that are believed to be legitimate headhunters working for Chinese intelligence officials to build relationships with targets on sites like LinkedIn.” MI5 is not the only intelligence agency to warn about social media’s potential to allow spying. In July, Mike Burgess, the Director-General of Australia’s Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) said a foreign intelligence agency tried to find info about an Australian military project by cultivating relationships with people who worked on it. The agency’s task was made easy by the fact that over 100 people involved in the project mentioned it on their LinkedIn profiles. Burgess said over 35,000 profiles on a professional networking site include mentions of members who have access to “sensitive and potentially classified information.” Jarvis said “It is not just parliamentarians who should be concerned by this; parliamentary staff, economists, think-tank employees, geopolitical consultants and Government officials have all been targeted for their networks and access to politicians.” The minister said China “has a low threshold for what information is considered to be of value, and will gather individual pieces of information to build a wider picture.” “Let me speak plainly,” Jarvis added. “This activity involves a covert and calculated attempt by a foreign power to interfere with our sovereign affairs in favour of its own interests, and this Government will not tolerate it. It builds on a pattern of activity that we have seen from China, with cyber-operations by Chinese state-affiliated actors targeting parliamentarians’ emails in 2021, attempted foreign interference activity by Christine Lee [who MI5 believes aided China’s election interference efforts] in 2022, and other more recent cases.” Jarvis also announced that the UK has now removed all surveillance equipment “manufactured by companies subject to the national intelligence law of the People’s Republic of China from all sensitive sites we maintain in the UK and around the world.” A common interpretation of China’s national intelligence law is that it compels Chinese companies to assist espionage operations. Fears the law could see Beijing require Middle Kingdom CCTV companies to help its espionage efforts led to the 2022 decision to remove Chinese video cameras in some UK government facilities. That job is now complete, but the UK’s efforts to improve security continue: Jarvis announced a £170 million ($224 million) investment in “renewing the sovereign and encrypted technology that civil servants use to safeguard sensitive work.”