Personal details about the life of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, have been removed from social networking site Facebook amid security concerns.

Lady Sawers revealed the location of the London flat used by the couple and the whereabouts of their three grown-up children and of Sir John’s parents, the paper said.

She had not imposed privacy protection on her account, allowing any of Facebook’s 200 million users in the open-access “London” network to see the entries, it added.

The details were removed after the paper contacted the Foreign Office.