UK spying fears after secret camera found in Whitehall ceiling panel

A secret camera has been discovered in a sensitive Whitehall building, sparking fears of espionage, The i Paper has learned. Security officials working at Marsham Street in Victoria, central London – a vast suite of offices that houses the Home Office and the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) – found a hidden camera in a ceiling panel, ministers have been informed. The discovery sparked alarm because officials in the building had been involved in the controversial planning application for China’s proposed new mega-embassy in London. A source familiar with the incident, which occurred in the last two months, said the Security Services had been informed. How the camera came to be placed in such a sensitive location, and how long it was there, remain unknown. Subsequent enquiries have sought to establish who placed the device. The electronic device had been discovered in a communal area of a shared building used by multiple civil servants, rather than in or near ministerial offices. One of the most high-profile decisions taken in the Marsham Street building in recent months was the approval of China’s plans for a huge new embassy in central London – despite opponents warning that the site could be used as a base for spying and posed security risks. The revelation will renew concerns about the security of UK Government buildings. Hackers linked to China and Russia have been connected with a series of cyber operations against UK Government systems in recent years, aimed at gathering political intelligence and accessing sensitive information. The threat posed by cyber attacks can be severe. The presence of a covert device in a Whitehall building, in proximity to key officials and ministers responsible for sensitive policy matters, will heighten fears over espionage tactics. There is no suggestion that Russia or China-linked actors are responsible for the device. The discovery left staff shocked, fearing that they were being watched or listened to – and speculating about how and why the camera had been placed there. The context was very different, but several civil servants said the discovery reminded them of the 2021 scandal when CCTV footage was leaked of former health secretary Matt Hancock kissing his mistress Gina Coladangelo in his office. The subsequent public outrage focused on Hancock’s hypocrisy, but in Whitehall there was also alarm that sensitive department meetings and conversations might be being monitored. Tory shadow minister Alex Burghart said: “This is an extremely serious incident that demands an urgent investigation. “The discovery of a hidden camera inside a building that occupies the Home Office and other departments raises serious questions about the security of government departments and the actions of those seeking to undermine them.” Burghart, the Shadow Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster, added: “We urgently need to know who was responsible, how long this device was in place, and whether any sensitive or classified information has been compromised.” An MHCLG spokesperson said: “We do not comment on security matters.” The Home Office and MHCLG were involved in the controversial planning decision to approve the new Chinese embassy earlier this year. The i Paper revealed in January 2025 that the Royal Mint Court site sits close to fibre-optic cables carrying vast quantities of highly sensitive data from the City of London. The proximity sparked concern among Britain’s intelligence services that the cables could be vulnerable to attack, and used by Beijing to infiltrate the UK’s financial system. In its final decision letter in January 2026, however, MHCLG said there was no suggestion the use of the site as an embassy would interfere with the cables. It added that no bodies with responsibility for national security – including the Home Office and the Foreign Office – had raised concerns or objected on the basis of the cables’ proximity. The MI5 director general Sir Ken McCallum and GCHQ director Anne Keast-Butler said in a joint letter at the time that a “proportionate” package of national security mitigations had now been developed for the site. Last autumn, Sir Ken used his annual speech to warn that state threats from China, Russia and Iran were escalating, with MI5 seeing a 35 per cent increase in the number of individuals it is investigating over the past year. Chinese state actors in particular, he said, present a daily national security threat to the UK, and he revealed that MI5 had recently intervened operationally to disrupt Chinese activity of national security concern. Only last week, the Five Eyes alliance – made up of agencies from the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – warned that Chinese spies are posing as recruitment agents to trick UK government and military staff into disclosing state secrets. This included using legitimate websites such as LinkedIn to advertise fake analyst jobs. The i Paper has previously exposed how a hidden Chinese tracking device was found in a UK government car after intelligence officials stripped back vehicles in response to growing concerns over spyware. This newspaper also revealed how the Ministry of Defence banned electric vehicles with Chinese components from sensitive sites and military training bases, after senior officials raised concerns that the vehicles could be tracked and that sensors in the cars could be used to gather intelligence and send it back to Beijing. Other high-profile security breaches include the alleged hacking of Liz Truss’s phone by agents suspected of working for the Kremlin when she was foreign secretary. Cyber-spies are believed to have gained access to top-secret exchanges with key international partners, as well as private conversations with her leading political ally, Kwasi Kwarteng. The phone was so heavily compromised, it was placed in a locked safe at a secure government location, according to reports.