Strange questions that sometimes need answering (or not asking in the first place really).

[Slugjc]

Look, the word I wanted to use isn't allowed anymore.

We still talking about the kitchen appliance manufacturer

 

[BarryIsAnIsland]

With the current furore in the news about Peter Mandelson and his Developed Vetting, I have a weird question about people who hold DV.

With Mandelson (or whoever the current US Ambassador is) being publicly announced appointments who hold DV, as well as the heads of big intelligence organisations like GCHQ, why is it that the average person who holds DV in a lower level post isn’t even allowed to say where they work or what their job title is?

I absolutely get that these people handle national security information, but if we’re publicly announcing much higher profile names who hold DV, who are surely much more notable targets, why is it that Steve the junior data scientist, for example, isn’t allowed to put on a CV or LinkedIn that he’s a Junior Data Scientist at GCHQ? Provided he doesn’t go into any further detail about specific information, I don’t see why knowing his job title and employer would be an issue, and not being able to put this could really harm future employability.

When ambassadorial appointments, permanent secretaries and such who hold DV are announced publicly, I’m not sure I see why lower down people who hold DV are such a risk that they aren’t even allowed to tell anyone their basic job title or their employer.

Shouldn’t we surely be either withholding the holders of the bigger posts from the public conscious or allowing lower-down employees to say they work there? Or am I missing something here?

Loads of roles require DV and you are allowed to openly say you are in the role and have DV. Nearly all foreign office policy roles, maybe all, probably most Director roles. It's just the GCHQy ones you can't say. I still agree it's a bit silly. Oh you did a maths subject at a good University and you live in Cheltenham eh? Total mystery who you work for!

 

[Matt N]

It's just the GCHQy ones you can't say. I still agree it's a bit silly. Oh you did a maths subject at a good University and you live in Cheltenham eh? Total mystery who you work for!

I’ve thought this myself.

I studied Computer Science at the University of Gloucestershire campus in Cheltenham and grew up in the Forest of Dean, so GCHQ is one of the prime industry-relevant employers in my area (they’re actually the largest employer in Gloucestershire, if I’m not wrong), and during my time in school and uni, I encountered people with links to GCHQ and the NCSC and it was seen as quite an aspirational place to work. Indeed, I myself applied to a degree apprenticeship scheme at GCHQ when I was 17 and have seriously considered working there on more than one occasion (as you can probably guess by my openness about this, I didn’t even get an interview for the apprenticeship and ultimately never applied for any jobs there afterwards).

After we left, a friend of mine from UoG got in touch to me to say that he’d “applied for a role at a government agency” and wanted me to be a reference for his application. He obviously didn’t specifically tell me this and was very cagey about what specific role he’d actually applied for… but given where we went to uni and the subject we studied, I don’t think it’s too much of a reach to suggest he probably gained employment at GCHQ and wanted me to provide evidence for his DV application!

Incidentally, I was later interviewed by UK Security Vetting as part of this process, and it has to be one of the strangest experiences of my life… despite me having a pretty surface-level relationship with the guy, I was interviewed for almost an hour and the questions quickly got very personal, including but not limited to asking me about what type of pornography he liked watching, asking me whether he’d had an affair or one-night stand, asking me whether he had any “family feuds”, asking me whether he’d ever taken drugs, asking me if he had any anti-UK or anti-NATO political views and questions about other such gritty topics. That interview was longer than some job interviews I’ve had, and even though I wasn’t even the person being vetted, it was probably equally uncomfortable as any job interview I’ve had in its own way…