MI5 director general gives annual threat update

MI5 director general Ken McCallum has given his annual threat update.

McCallum said a more hostile world is forcing the biggest shifts in MI5’s mission since 9/11, with near record volumes of terrorism investigations as well as increasing state threats.

He started by remembering the recent terrorist attack in Manchester and the 20th anniversary of the July 7th attacks.

Since the start of 2020, MI5 and the police have disrupted 19 late-stage attack plots. 

McCallum noted a change in investigations, with teams mostly focussed on individuals and small groups, rather than larger, more established networks.

He pointed out that Al Qaeda and Islamic State are becoming more ambitious, both encouraging and indirectly inciting would-be attackers in the West.

He also highlighted the rise in young people becoming involved in investigation one in five of the 232 terrorism arrests last year were of children under 17.

McCallum said that in the last year, there's been a 35 per cent increase in the number of individuals being investigated for involvement in state threat activity, highlighting Russia, Iran and China.

He finished his speech by talking about AI, with would-be terrorist trying to harness AI for their propaganda, their weapons research and their target reconnaissance. On the other hand, MI5 teams are using AI across their investigations, conducting automated trawls of images to instantly spot the one with a gun in it or searching across large volumes of messages between suspects to find a buried phrase that reveals an assassination plot.

He concluded: "In 2025, MI5 is contending with more volume and more variety of threat, from terrorists and state actors, than I’ve ever seen. Total security is, as we know, impossible in the kind of free society in which we all want to live. But still, we continue to strive for it, night and day.

"MI5, alongside the police, MI6, GCHQ, the NCA, the military and many others, is part of one of the most capable and connected national security systems in the world. We do succeed in detecting threats people are trying hard to conceal. We do get ahead of them in time to make a difference. And we do manage to lift our gaze to anticipate the next generation of threats and risks.

"That’s why I am so proud of the talented, selfless, often courageous MI5 people who show up, day after day, night after night, year after year, to take on these threats."