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MI6 is set to hire almost 1,000 new staff as it struggles to find people capable of operating undercover in the social media age - it has been reported.

The UK's Secret Intelligence Service will expand from 2,500 staff to just under 3,500 as it seeks to ensure he security of people and operations, according to BBC Newsnight .

Intelligence bosses are reportedly struggling to operate in an environment where the majority of Western people have left traces on the internet.

The advancement in facial recognition technology means creating fictitious identities is becoming increasingly difficult.

Images can easily be reversed to find the real identity of undercover operatives before they joined the security services.

(Image: Getty)

In a rare public appearance, the head of MI6 Alex Younger said rapid technological changes "throw everything up in the air" and mean the service has to "fundamentally" look at the way we carry out intelligence operations.

He said: "This is a fabulously important issue and one that will dictate our future success.

"I think that the real issue for us has been the effect that this has had on the levels of trust between the intelligence communities internationally and the technology community where I think that the right and proper response to the common threats that face us is through community of effort and teamwork between those different groups."

Asked if the terror threat from groups like IS and al Qaida had reached its apex, Mr Younger said: "I would like to be optimistic about this but we have got quite long experience of this phenomena now and I see it very much as the flip side to some very deep-seated global trends, not least of all globalisation, the reduction of barriers between us.

(Image: Getty)

"It's a function also of the information revolution and the capacity for ideas to travel. It is fuelled by a deepening sectarian divide in the Middle East and there are some deep social economic and demographic drivers to the phenomenon that we know as terrorism.

"Allied with the emergence of state failure this means that, regrettably, this is an enduring issue which will certainly be with us, I believe, for our professional lifetime."