Official Secrets Act 1889
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1889 c. 52 |
| Year | 1889 |
Official Secrets Act, 1889.
(52 & 53 Vict.) CHAPTER 52.
An Act to prevent the Disclosure of Official Documents and Information.
[26th August 1889]
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
1 Disclosure of information.
1.—(1.) (a .) Where a person for the purpose of wrongfully obtaining information—
(i.) enters or is in any part of a place belonging to Her Majesty the Queen, being a fortress, arsenal, factory, dockyard, camp, ship, office, or other like place, in which part he is not entitled to be; or
(ii.) when lawfully or unlawfully in any such place as aforesaid, either obtains any document, sketch, plan, model, or knowledge of any thing which he is not entitled to obtain, or takes without lawful authority any sketch or plan; or
(iii.) when outside any fortress, arsenal, factory, dockyard, or camp belonging to Her Majesty the Queen, takes or attempts to take without authority given by or on behalf of Her Majesty, any sketch or plan of that fortress, arsenal, factory, dockyard, or camp; or
(b .) where a person knowingly having possession of, or control over, any such document, sketch, plan, model, or knowledge as has been obtained or taken by means of any act which constitutes an offence against this Act at any time wilfully and without lawful authority communicates or attempts to communicate the same to any person to whom the same ought not, in the interest of the State, to be communicated at that time; or
(c .) where a person after having been entrusted in confidence by some officer under Her Majesty the Queen with any document, sketch, plan, model, or information relating to any such place as aforesaid, or to the naval or military affairs of Her Majesty, wilfully and in breach of such confidence communicates the same when, in the interest of the State, it ought not to be communicated;
he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction be liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding one year, or to a fine, or to both imprisonment and a fine.
(2) (2.) Where a person having possession of any document, sketch, plan, model, or information relating to any fortress, arsenal, factory, dockyard, camp, ship, office, or other like place belonging to Her Majesty, or to the naval or military affairs of Her Majesty, in whatever manner the same has been obtained or taken, at any time wilfully communicates the same to any person to whom he knows the same ought not, in the interest of the State, to be communicated at that time, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and be liable to the same punishment as if he committed an offence under the foregoing provisions of this section.
(3) (3.) Where a person commits any act declared by this section to be a misdemeanour, he shall, if he intended to communicate to a foreign State any information, document, sketch, plan, model, or knowledge obtained or taken by him, or entrusted to him as aforesaid, or if he communicates the same to any agent of a foreign State, be guilty of felony, and on conviction be liable at the discretion of the court to penal servitude for life, or for any term not less than five years, or to imprisonment for any term...
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