Generally speaking, if you ask any pre-adolescent boy about government documents. The general gist will be that they all have the words “TOP SECRET”. Stencilled diagonally across the front page in big, bright red letters.  When you delve into it in a little more depth you will sadly find that its a far less seductive affair. That includes strict rules about its presentation and where each level can be used. In this article, we will take a look in the terminology of security classifications in UK documents.

List of Security Classifications Terminology

Ok so to start off with, there are five restricted levels and a sixth unrestricted level.  Starting at the most restricted:

• Top Secret
• Secret
• Confidential
• Restricted
• Protect
• Unclassified

Security Classification Stages Explained

The classification of each level is based on its potential impact should the information be released into the public domain:

Top Secret – if this information becomes public it could lead to considerable loss of life, major or international diplomatic incident or damage ongoing intelligence operations.

Secret – this classification indicates that the contained information could lead to loss of life, adversely affect diplomatic relations with friendly nations or cause a public disturbance.

Confidential – with this information you could disrupt daily life in the country, damage diplomatic relations or infringe personal liberties.

Restricted – is sensitive to specific individuals and would cause significant distress or could compromise military or law enforcement efforts.

Protect – indicates that the contained information would adversely affect individuals.

Unclassified – everything else…

Some businesses choose to implement this or a similar scheme to classify internal information.  This allows employees clear cut decisions around sharing information between departments or between employees and the level at which they need to protect the information whilst in their care.

Another way to specify who is able to see the information is with the use of Tags. This can help people distinguish who have access to the data.  For instance “SECRET – DEFENCE” would specify that individuals reading the information would require both SECRET authorisation and DEFENCE authorisation.

Typically the classification would be present in the header and footer of each page of a document and clearly marked on the front cover.

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