The Foreign Office has defended spy boss Sir John Sawers after his wife posted private information about the family on Facebook.

Sawers takes over as head of the Secret Intelligence Service in November. His wife's Facebook profile failed to use any privacy protection and included home addresses, family photographs and holiday snaps.

"For goodness sake, let's grow up." Good to see the government taking data security seriously then.

Apart from cavorting in his budgie smugglers, Britain's "C" is also seen posing in a Santa hat in New York.

Lady Shelley Sawers's, page includes messages from family such as: "Congrats on the new job, already dubbed Uncle "C" by nephews in the know."

Other family snaps reveal that Sawers' brother-in-law is an associate of holocaust denier David Irving. Less controversially, another relative pictured on holiday plays Janet Fisher in radio soap opera The Archers.

The pictures and information disappeared quickly once The Mail on Sunday asked the Foreign Office for comment. Given Facebook's rather lax approach to deleting profiles and pictures, however, we can only hope the information has been properly removed.

Facebook altered its privacy policies last week, supposedly to make them easier to access and use. It seems Lady Sawers fell victim to allowing anyone in the London group to see her profile. Such regional groups are being phased out because of security concerns. ®

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