MI5 joins Instagram as first post reveals pods where UK’s secrets lie

MI5 has given a glimpse of where some of the UK’s biggest secrets are stored in its first post on Instagram.

The Secret Service launched an official account on the platform on Thursday in an effort to open up about its work and dispel some popular myths.

Revealing a photo from within the organisation’s London headquarters, the first photo to be shared reads: “The secret to successful spying? Consider all angles. It’ll give you a better view…

“This is the view our staff see as they enter MI5 HQ in Thames House, London. Behind these pods lie some of the UK’s best kept secrets.”

Home Secretary Priti Patel was among those to write a comment on the post, saying: “Thank you for your exceptional work in keeping our country safe.”

MI5 plans to use Instagram to reveal never-before-seen material from its archives, as well as promoting recruitment opportunities and hosting online Q&As with serving intelligence officers.

However, director general Ken McCallum said the service would still need to keep many of its secrets so it can operate undetected in dangerous environments.

“The other half of the dilemma is that MI5’s ability to keep the country safe and resilient also depends on our reaching out to others who can help us, and whom we in turn can help,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph.

We must get past whatever Martini-drinking stereotypes may be lingering by conveying a bit more of what today’s MI5 is actually like

“We owe it to the public to be constantly striving to learn and improve; and in our fast-moving world, with technology advancing at incredible speed, it would be dangerous vanity to imagine MI5 can build all the capabilities it needs inside its own bubble.”

Glasgow-raised Mr McCallum expressed hope the service being on Instagram would allow it to recruit Britain’s best and brightest, regardless of background.

“We must get past whatever Martini-drinking stereotypes may be lingering by conveying a bit more of what today’s MI5 is actually like, so that people don’t rule themselves out based on perceived barriers such as socio-economic background, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, disability, or which part of the country they happen to have been born in,” he explained.

The account, @mi5official, already had more than 38,000 followers by midday on Thursday.

MI5 follows GCHQ, which joined the Facebook-owned social network in October 2018.