A 25-year-old former employee of the UK’s intelligence agency GCHQ has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for removing top secret information from a secure government

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Hasaan Arshad admitted in March to violating the Computer Misuse Act by downloading sensitive data during his time at GCHQ between August and September 2022. The data included the identities of 17 GCHQ staff members. Prosecutors warned that taking such information outside secure systems created a significant risk of it falling into the wrong hands and undermined trust in the UK’s national security apparatus.

"His actions damaged confidence in the UK's security," said prosecutor Duncan Atkinson during proceedings at London’s Old Bailey.

In addition to the six-year sentence for the data breach, Judge Maura McGowan handed Arshad an extra 18 months for two offenses related to the possession of indecent images of children, to which he had pleaded guilty in 2023.

Arshad’s defense lawyer, Nina Grahame, claimed that he had taken the material home out of a desire to complete a project during a year-long placement, describing his actions as a product of “perfectionism.” She said he did not intend to endanger national security, though he accepted the consequences of his actions. Photo: GCHQ/Crown Copyright/MOD, Wikimedia commons.