Tempora is the codeword for a formerly-secret computer system that is used by the British

Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primari ...

(GCHQ). This system is used to buffer most

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

communications that are extracted from

fibre-optic cable A fiber-optic cable, also known as an optical-fiber cable, is an assembly similar to an electrical cable but containing one or more optical fibers that are used to carry light. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with p ...

s, so these can be processed and searched at a later time.GCHQ report on the technical abilities of the powerful spying program TEMPORA, which allows for a "full take"
released by Der Spiegel on 18 June 2014 It was tested from 2008 and became operational in late 2011. Tempora uses intercepts on the fibre-optic cables that serve as the backbone of the Internet to gain access to large amounts of Internet users' personal data, without any individual suspicion or targeting. The intercepts are placed in the United Kingdom and on the UK military base at Ayios Nikolaos in the

British Overseas Territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

Akrotiri and Dhekelia Akrotiri and Dhekelia (), officially the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (SBA), is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory made of two non-contiguous areas on the island of Geography of Cyprus, Cyprus. The area ...

. The intercepts are placed with the knowledge of companies owning either the cables or landing stations. The existence of Tempora was revealed by

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Born in 1983 in Elizabeth ...

, a former American intelligence contractor who leaked information about the programme to former ''

Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unit ...

'' journalist

Glenn Greenwald Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author, and former lawyer. In 1996, Greenwald founded a law firm concentrating on First Amendment to the United States Constitution, First Amendment litigation. He began blo ...

in May 2013 as part of his revelations of government-sponsored mass surveillance programmes. Documents Snowden acquired showed that data collected by the Tempora programme is shared with the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

of the United States.

Operation

According to

, Tempora has two principal components called "

Mastering the Internet Mastering the Internet (MTI) is a mass surveillance project led by the British communications intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) budgeted at over £1 billion. According to reports in ''The Register'' and ''The Sund ...

" (MTI) and "

Global Telecoms Exploitation Global Telecoms Exploitation is reportedly a secret British telephonic mass surveillance programme run by the British signals intelligence and computer security agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Its existence was reveale ...

" (GTE). He claimed that each is intended to collate online and telephone traffic. This contradicts two original documents, which say that Tempora is only for Internet traffic, just like the

XKeyscore XKeyscore (XKEYSCORE or XKS) is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data, which it collects in real time. The NSA has shared XKeyscore with other intelligen ...

system of the NSA, components of which are incorporated in Tempora. It is alleged that GCHQ produces larger amounts of

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

than NSA. By May 2012, 300 GCHQ analysts and 250 NSA analysts had been assigned to sort data. ''The Guardian'' claims that no distinction is made in the gathering of data between public citizens and targeted suspects. Tempora is said to include recordings of telephone calls, the content of email messages, Facebook entries and the personal Internet history of users. Snowden said of Tempora that "It's not just a U.S. problem. The U.K. has a huge dog in this fight...They CHQare worse than the U.S." Claims exist that Tempora was possible only by way of secret agreements with commercial companies, described in Snowden's leaked documents as "intercept partners". Some companies are alleged to have been paid for their co-operation. Snowden also alleged that GCHQ staff were urged to disguise the origin of material in their reports for fear that the role of the companies as intercept partners would cause "high-level political fallout". The companies are forbidden to reveal the existence of warrants compelling them to allow GCHQ access to the cables. If the companies fail to comply they can be compelled to do so. Lawyers for GCHQ said it would be impossible to list the total number of people targeted by Tempora because "this would be an infinite list which we couldn't manage". GCHQ set up a three-year trial at

GCHQ Bude GCHQ Bude, also known as GCHQ Composite Signals Organisation Station Morwenstow, abbreviated to GCHQ CSO Morwenstow, is a UK Government satellite ground station and eavesdropping centre located on the north Cornwall coast at Cleave Camp, betwe ...

in Cornwall. GCHQ had probes attached to more than 201 Internet links by mid-2011; each probe carried 10

gigabit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communication. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented as ...

s of data a second. NSA analysts were brought into the trials, and Tempora was launched in 2011, with data shared with the NSA. Ongoing technical work is expanding GCHQ's capacity to collect data from new super cables that carry data at 100 gigabits a second. The data is preserved for three days while

is kept for thirty days. Tempora comprises different components, like the actual access points to fibre-optic cables, a sanitisation programme codenamed POKERFACE, the

XKEYSCORE XKeyscore (XKEYSCORE or XKS) is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data, which it collects in real time. The NSA has shared XKeyscore with other intelligen ...

system developed by NSA, and a Massive Volume Reduction (MVR) capability. In May 2012, GCHQ had Tempora systems installed at the following locations: * 16 for 10 gigabit/second cables at the CPC processing centre * 7 for 10 gigabit/second cables at the OPC processing centre * 23 for 10 gigabit/second cables at the RPC1 processing centre

Reactions

UK defence officials issued a confidential

DA-Notice In the United Kingdom, D-Notices, officially known since 2015 as DSMA-Notices (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notices), are official requests to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for reasons of national sec ...

to the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

and other media asking the media to refrain from running further stories related to surveillance leaks including US

PRISM PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies. The program is also known by the SIGAD . PRISM collects stored internet ...

programme and the British involvement therein. The US Army has restricted its employees' access to the ''Guardian'' website since the beginning of the NSA leaks of PRISM and Tempora "in order to prevent an unauthorised disclosure of classified information." German Federal Minister of Justice

Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger ( Leutheusser; born 26 July 1951) is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party and a prominent advocate of human rights in Germany and Europe. Within the FDP, she is a leading figure of the soci ...

tweeted that she considered the programme an ''"Alptraum"'' ("nightmare") and demanded that

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

institutions investigate the matter.

Jan Philipp Albrecht Jan Philipp Albrecht (born 20 December 1982) is a German politician of the Alliance '90/The Greens, part of The Greens-European Free Alliance. From 2018 to 2022, he served as Minister for Energy, Agriculture, the Environment, Nature and Digital ...

, German

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

and spokesperson for Justice and Home Affairs of the Greens/EFA parliamentary group, called for an infringement procedure against the United Kingdom for having violated its obligations relating to the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data under Article 16 of the

Treaties of the European Union The Treaties of the European Union are a set of international treaties between the European Union (EU) member states which sets out the EU's constitutional basis. They establish the various EU institutions together with their remit, procedure ...

. In September 2018, the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The court hears applications alleging that a co ...

ruled that the UK's mass data interception and retention programmes, including Tempora, "was unlawful and incompatible with the conditions necessary for a democratic society".

References

External links

TEMPORA – "The World's Largest XKEYSCORE" – Is Now Available to Qualified NSA Users
released by Der Spiegel on 18 June 2014 * * * {{cite web , first=Bruce , last=Schneier , title=GCHQ Intercept Sites in Oman , work=Schneier on Security , url=https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/06/gchq_intercept_.html , date=5 June 2014 , access-date=11 June 2014 Privacy of telecommunications Secret government programs Mass surveillance Surveillance Surveillance scandals War on terror GCHQ operations Internet in the United Kingdom Intelligence agency programmes revealed by Edward Snowden

Operation

Reactions

See also

References

External links