Member of parliament and Foreign Affairs Committee chair Tom Tugendhat has made the claim that the UK’s intelligence services unofficially told him to stop using his official parliamentary email in favour of Google’s Gmail service over concerns that the government’s own system is vulnerable to attack from foreign intelligence agents.
Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme on 13 April 2021, Tugendhat said: “I was told by friends at GCHQ – not formally, I admit – that I was better off sticking to Gmail rather than using the parliamentary system because it was more secure. Frankly that tells you the level of security and the priority we’re giving to democracy in the United Kingdom.”
