Official Secrets Act 1911
E436781
The Official Secrets Act 1911 is a key piece of United Kingdom legislation that established criminal offences related to espionage and the unauthorised disclosure of information affecting national security.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Official Secrets Act 1911 canonical | 7 |
| Official Secrets Act 1911 section 2 | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4359513 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Official Secrets Act 1911 Context triple: [Official Secrets Act 1989, amends, Official Secrets Act 1911]
-
A.
Official Secrets Act 1989
The Official Secrets Act 1989 is a UK law that criminalizes the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive government and security information by officials, journalists, and others.
-
B.
Espionage Act of 1917
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a U.S. federal law enacted during World War I that criminalizes interference with military operations, support for U.S. enemies, and certain forms of dissent, and has been widely used and debated in national security and free speech cases.
-
C.
Sedition Act of 1918
The Sedition Act of 1918 was a World War I–era U.S. law that expanded restrictions on speech by criminalizing criticism of the government, the Constitution, the military, or the war effort.
-
D.
Suppression of Communism Act
The Suppression of Communism Act was a key apartheid-era South African law used to outlaw communism and broadly criminalize anti-government and anti-apartheid political activity.
-
E.
Intelligence Services Act 1994
The Intelligence Services Act 1994 is a UK law that formally put the country’s intelligence agencies, including MI6 and GCHQ, on a statutory footing and defined their powers, functions, and oversight mechanisms.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Official Secrets Act 1911 Target entity description: The Official Secrets Act 1911 is a key piece of United Kingdom legislation that established criminal offences related to espionage and the unauthorised disclosure of information affecting national security.
-
A.
Official Secrets Act 1989
The Official Secrets Act 1989 is a UK law that criminalizes the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive government and security information by officials, journalists, and others.
-
B.
Espionage Act of 1917
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a U.S. federal law enacted during World War I that criminalizes interference with military operations, support for U.S. enemies, and certain forms of dissent, and has been widely used and debated in national security and free speech cases.
-
C.
Sedition Act of 1918
The Sedition Act of 1918 was a World War I–era U.S. law that expanded restrictions on speech by criminalizing criticism of the government, the Constitution, the military, or the war effort.
-
D.
Suppression of Communism Act
The Suppression of Communism Act was a key apartheid-era South African law used to outlaw communism and broadly criminalize anti-government and anti-apartheid political activity.
-
E.
Intelligence Services Act 1994
The Intelligence Services Act 1994 is a UK law that formally put the country’s intelligence agencies, including MI6 and GCHQ, on a statutory footing and defined their powers, functions, and oversight mechanisms.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (134)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom
ⓘ
United Kingdom national security law ⓘ |
| amendedBy |
Official Secrets Act 1920
ⓘ
Official Secrets Act 1939 ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
Crown servants
ⓘ
government contractors ⓘ members of the public in specified circumstances ⓘ |
| citation | 1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 28 ⓘ |
| containsSection |
section 1
ⓘ
section 10 ⓘ section 100 ⓘ section 11 ⓘ section 12 ⓘ section 13 ⓘ section 14 ⓘ section 15 ⓘ section 16 ⓘ section 17 ⓘ section 18 ⓘ section 19 ⓘ section 2 ⓘ section 20 ⓘ section 21 ⓘ section 22 ⓘ section 23 ⓘ section 24 ⓘ section 25 ⓘ section 26 ⓘ section 27 ⓘ section 28 ⓘ section 29 ⓘ section 3 ⓘ section 30 ⓘ section 31 ⓘ section 32 ⓘ section 33 ⓘ section 34 ⓘ section 35 ⓘ section 36 ⓘ section 37 ⓘ section 38 ⓘ section 39 ⓘ section 40 ⓘ section 41 ⓘ section 42 ⓘ section 43 ⓘ section 44 ⓘ section 45 ⓘ section 46 ⓘ section 47 ⓘ section 48 ⓘ section 49 ⓘ section 50 ⓘ section 51 ⓘ section 52 ⓘ section 53 ⓘ section 54 ⓘ section 55 ⓘ section 56 ⓘ section 57 ⓘ section 58 ⓘ section 59 ⓘ section 6 ⓘ section 60 ⓘ section 61 ⓘ section 62 ⓘ section 63 ⓘ section 64 ⓘ section 65 ⓘ section 66 ⓘ section 67 ⓘ section 68 ⓘ section 69 ⓘ section 7 ⓘ section 70 ⓘ section 71 ⓘ section 72 ⓘ section 73 ⓘ section 74 ⓘ section 75 ⓘ section 76 ⓘ section 77 ⓘ section 78 ⓘ section 79 ⓘ section 8 ⓘ section 80 ⓘ section 81 ⓘ section 82 ⓘ section 83 ⓘ section 84 ⓘ section 85 ⓘ section 86 ⓘ section 87 ⓘ section 88 ⓘ section 89 ⓘ section 9 ⓘ section 90 ⓘ section 91 ⓘ section 92 ⓘ section 93 ⓘ section 94 ⓘ section 95 ⓘ section 96 ⓘ section 97 ⓘ section 98 ⓘ section 99 ⓘ |
| country | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| introducedBy | Winston Churchill ⓘ |
| legalDomain | criminal law ⓘ |
| legalStatus | partly in force ⓘ |
| legislature |
Parliament of the United Kingdom
ⓘ
linked to:
British Parliament
|
| longTitle | An Act to re-enact the Official Secrets Act 1889 with Amendments ⓘ |
| maximumPenaltySection1 | imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years ⓘ |
| offenceType |
disclosure of official information offence
ⓘ
espionage offence ⓘ |
| partiallyRepealedBy | Official Secrets Act 1989 ⓘ |
| primaryPurpose |
criminalisation of espionage
ⓘ
criminalisation of unauthorised disclosure of official information ⓘ protection of national security ⓘ |
| relatedLegislation |
Official Secrets Act 1920
ⓘ
Official Secrets Act 1939 ⓘ Official Secrets Act 1989 ⓘ |
| repealedPreviousAct | Official Secrets Act 1889 ⓘ |
| responsibleDepartmentAtEnactment | Home Office ⓘ |
| royalAssent | 1911-08-22 ⓘ |
| section1DealsWith | offences of spying and obtaining information useful to an enemy ⓘ |
| section2DealsWith | unauthorised disclosure of official information ⓘ |
| section3DealsWith | definition of prohibited places ⓘ |
| shortTitle | Official Secrets Act 1911 ⓘ |
| subjectMatter |
government information
ⓘ
national security ⓘ state secrets ⓘ |
| territorialExtent | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| yearEnacted | 1911 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Official Secrets Act 1911 Description of subject: The Official Secrets Act 1911 is a key piece of United Kingdom legislation that established criminal offences related to espionage and the unauthorised disclosure of information affecting national security.
Referenced by (8)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Official Secrets Act 1911