![]() ![]() Each offence has been constructed with legal tests appropriate to the relevant activtity.The creation of three separate offences ensures that the legislation captures the harmful activity the Government cares about whilst ensuring a wider range of activity is not criminalised.In a modern, interconnected world it is right that the legislation moves away from binary concepts of a country being an “enemy” and covers the wide range of threats and harms that constitute espionage today.New offences capturing “espionage” activity The Government’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy noted that ‘the distinction between economic and national security is increasingly redundant’.Following their analysis of the existing provisions, the Law Commission’s Protection of Official Data report recommended that “a new statute – containing modern language and updated provisions – should replace the Official Secrets Acts 1911-1939”.Often, the most damaging state threats activity is conducted by foreign intelligence services. Foreign intelligence services run networks of agents overseas, including in the UK, with the purpose of furthering their own objectives and damaging the UK’s national security.There is no current criminal offence specifically designed to protect the UK and its interests from the illicit acquisition of trade secrets conducted by foreign states.Espionage is already a criminal offence, but the relevant law is contained in the OSA 1911 and is therefore over 100 years old.The government is updating and modernising the existing espionage provisions to ensure that law enforcement partners, our intelligence agencies and the courts have a set of offences with enhanced utility to keep the UK safe, and improve our ability to detect, prevent and respond to state threats.The UK, therefore, must be able to continue to counter acts of espionage to keep the country safe. New technologies have created new opportunities and vectors through which the UK can be attacked, lowering the cost and risk to states to conduct espionage and enabling the activity to take place abroad.UK assets and information with a commercial, economic or industrial value are a target for state actors, and we must make it as difficult as possible for states to attack the UK. ![]()
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