The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) is an all-source intelligence organisation closely related to the United Kingdom Security Service which provides advice to the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

government and firms within the Critical National Infrastructure on

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

threats. Operating from

Thames House Thames House is an office building in Millbank, London, on the north bank of the River Thames adjacent to Lambeth Bridge. Originally used as offices by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), it has served as the headquarters of the United Kingdom' ...

on Millbank in central

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, it provides regular assessments to government departments, major companies and institutions, predominantly in the transport, financial services, utilities and telecommunications industries.

Organisation

The Director of JTAC reports to the Director General of the Security Service (commonly known as

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...

), and directs a staff including personnel from the Security Service, Secret Intelligence Service (commonly known as

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as 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 Uni ...

(GCHQ),

Defence Intelligence Staff Defence Intelligence (DI) is an organisation within the United Kingdom intelligence community which focuses on gathering and analysing military intelligence. It differs from the UK's intelligence agencies ( MI6, GCHQ and MI5) in that it is a ...

, Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorist Command and a further six government departments. Personnel are seconded to JTAC but remain under the authority of their parent organisations. As a body closely related to the Security Service, JTAC is bound by the provisions of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 and is subject to the oversight of the

Intelligence and Security Committee The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community. The committee was established in 1994 by the ...

Dissemination of information

Assessments are used to inform the threat levels disseminated through the Security Service, Home Office and Ministry of Defence. Until very recently these threat levels were promulgated in a form known as the BIKINI state and Tesseral State. The current threat system is similar to, and largely aligned with, the

US Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

rating system.

Threat levels

The range of five available threat levels is: *Low – an attack is unlikely *Moderate – an attack is possible, but not likely *Substantial – an attack is a strong possibility *Severe – an attack is highly likely *Critical – an attack is expected imminently This is a reduction from the previous seven levels in order to simplify communication to the general public.

Public attention

JTAC rose to public prominence following the terrorist attacks in London in July 2005. Media reporting highlighted a reduction in the threat level from ''"Severe General"'' to ''"Substantial"'' based on the assessment that the risk of an attack was at its lowest point since 9/11. These news reports were the first release of threat gradings outside the Critical National Infrastructure.

References

* (pdf)

External links

''The UK's Threat Level System''