Britain's chief spy exposed on Facebook

The wife of the Sir John Sawer, new head of MI6 (the British Secret Intelligence Service), posted on Facebook details of their London apartment, the whereabouts of their three children and of Sir John’s parents, and family photos. She used no privacy protection on the account, making the postings available to Facebook’s 200 million users.

The incident led to warnings to diplomats and civil servants about the dangers of putting details of their family and career on social networking websites.

See, "Farce of the Facebook spy: MI6 chief faces probe after wife exposes their life on Net," Daily Mail, July 6, 2009, at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197757/New-MI6-chief-faces-probe-wife-exposes-life-Net.html; "Wife of Sir John Sawer, the future head of MI6, in Facebook security alert," July 6, 2009, Times, at http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6644199.ece.