The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6) is the agency which supplies Her Majesty's Government with foreign intelligence. It operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) alongside the internal Security Service (MI5), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the Defence Intelligence (DI).
It is frequently referred to by the name MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6), a name used as a flag of convenience during the Second World War when it was known by many names. The existence of MI6 was not officially acknowledged until 1994.
In late 2010, the head of SIS delivered what he said was the first public address by a serving chief of the agency in its 101-year history. The remarks of Sir John Sawers primarily focused on the relationship between the need for secrecy and the goal of maintaining security within Britain. His remarks acknowledged the tensions caused by secrecy in an era of leaks and pressure for ever-greater disclosure.
Its headquarters, since 1995, are at Vauxhall Cross on the South Bank of the Thames.
Read more about Secret Intelligence Service: Chiefs of The SIS
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“I know we’re not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don’t know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don’t care that we don’t.”
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)