History Following a series of successful covert air reconnaissance operations run by the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) prior to World War II, the Photographic Development Unit (PDU) was established on 19th January 1940 (Codenamed MI4) and later renamed Photographic Interpretation Unit (PIU) on 11th July 1940.
Through a series of War Ministry reorganisations the PIU was renamed the Central Interpretation Unit (CIU) on 7th January 1941 and changed again to the Joint Air Photographic Intelligence centre (UK) JAPIC[UK] in August 1947.
On 17th December 1953 the unit was finally given the name of Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre [UK] - JARIC[UK].
The JARIC Photographic Wing moved to Brampton near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire from locations at Medmenham, Wyton and Wembley in 1956 where they were joined by the Joint School of Photographic Interpretation (JSPI) in December.
In 1980 the (UK) was dropped from the name to reflect the closing of the Cyprus based JARIC(NE) in April 1975.
On 19th April 1996 the unit ceased to fall under operational control of the Royal Air Force and became an agency under the operational control of the Director General Intelligence and Geographic Requirements (now Director General Intelligence Collection), taking a more centralised government role within the Ministry of Defence.
On 1st April 2000 the unit stopped functioning as an independent agency and merged with Military Survey into the Defence Geographic and Imagery Intelligence Agency (DGIA).
On the 10th October 2005 the JARIC name ceased to be an acronym to reflect the fact that its sources of imagery had shifted away from those provided by UK Air Reconnaissance platforms to be predominantly satellite imagery based.
The descriptor 'The National Imagery Exploitation Centre' was added to the JARIC title to better explain JARIC's role, not just within the Ministry of Defence but within the wider UK intelligence community.
On 10th June 2006, DGI (as it became after agency status was removed) was renamed the Intelligence Collection Group (ICG) comprising the Defence Geographic Centre (DGC) based at Feltham, Middlesex, The Joint Signals Support Organisation (JSSO), based at RAF Digby, the Joint Aeronautical and Geographic Organisation (JAGO) at Hermitage and RAF Northolt and JARIC The National National Imagery Exploitation Centre based at RAF Brampton.