The head of Australia’s overseas spy agency has warned that improvements in surveillance technology are putting “intense” pressure on her agents abroad, and says her organisation is making “unprecedented” investments into its technical capabilities to stay ahead of the curve.

The director-general of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), Kerri Hartland, made the comments during a rare public address in Canberra to a select group of students at the ANU’s national security college.

She also made a major recruitment pitch to the students, declaring that human intelligence will remain indispensable to her organisation’s work, despite the acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies.

ASIS has historically been averse to any publicity, and it remains illegal to identify all but a handful of its most senior leaders.

But its last three directors general have made a small number of public speeches, partly to solidify the agency’s social license and partly to bolster recruitment as it scrambles to attract highly skilled staff.

The director-general told students that the agency was taking “gradual and considered steps to be “more open” about its mission, which includes gathering intelligence from trusted sources who ASIS officers have recruited overseas.

She said that intelligence could include “urgent insights and warnings, (or) highly specialised data or other protected information.”

“But it’s information that, if we weren’t getting it, would otherwise not be available to Australian decision makers,” she said.

Ms Hartland also stressed the agency maintain an iron-clad commitment to protecting its sources overseas and that “human intelligence” remained critical to the agency’s operations.

“You have to gain that trust and you have to talk person to person,” she said.

“This has never been truer than in this age of misinformation and disinformation.

“There will never be a better analyst of those intentions and sentiments than highly trained humans. Humans who can read between the lines and understand what someone is actually saying.”

She also said ASIS officers were “truly patriots” who “at the end of the day they know they’re making a difference and helping the nation.”

“And it’s this ability to make a difference in such a unique way that’s the most rewarding part of the job,” Ms Hartland added. 

‘Novel’ for director-general to lay out operations 

Chris Taylor from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said while there was a “suitable generality” to the director-general’s comments, it was still “novel” to see her lay out its operations in more detail.

“This is the first time we’ve seen ASIS talk about the ‘how’ of their espionage and operations … it’s beyond what they’ve said before,” he said.

“I get the sense they want to explain what they do in clearer terms to a new generation of prospective officers.”

Mr Taylor said that Australia’s deteriorating strategic circumstances also meant there was a “greater expectation” and pressure on ASIS to deliver intelligence to give the federal government an edge.

“That means it’s more important to build a solid foundation to get not just a political license … but also a license at a social level to get that support that comes from a broader societal understanding of what ASIS does,” he said.

“That also helps ASIS find those recruits and build relationships with industry and researchers that will allow it to perform effectively in the future.

The director-general said that technology was a “double edged sword” for ASIS and that artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies had bolstered the surveillance capabilities deployed in countries where ASIS agents operated.

Ms Hartland said those advances could potentially put “new risks in front of our officers.”

“Our officers are extremely good at what they do,” she said.

“That doesn’t mean, though, that we are not under intense pressure and scrutiny by other overseas services and non state actors who have their own cutting edge tools. 

“It’s for these reasons that we are boosting our formidable technical skills and bringing on board more and more technical experts and problem solvers to be able to stay ahead of that technical curve.”

That seems to be a reference to some of the substantial funding boosts handed to ASIS in recent years – including almost $469 million committed over four years from 2023-24 to “modernise” the agency.

Mr Taylor said the speech provided “more colour and detail” on recent investments into ASIS than the “reasonably spartan details about modernisation in the budget papers.”

But he also said it was unsurprising to see the federal government ploughing more money into ASIS and overseas intelligence gathering.

“We’ve also seen Kerri Hartland’s international peers from the UK and the US talking about how technological advancements are affecting their impact and operations in the field,” he told the ABC.

The head of the National Security College Rory Medcalf said the speech “resonated” with the students, who were drawn from both the ANU and the University of Canberra.

“We’ve seen steps to transparency by ASIS chiefs over the past decade, but this is the first time one has made such a clear careers pitch to students,” he said.

“It’s also a sign of the times. Australia’s interests and values are at stake in a contested world, and intelligence is a meaningful career where individual talents can make a difference.”