Official Secrets Act 1939
E444166
The Official Secrets Act 1939 was a United Kingdom law that strengthened and clarified earlier official secrets legislation, particularly concerning national security and the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive government information.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Official Secrets Act 1939 canonical | 4 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4359559 — 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 1939 Context triple: [Official Secrets Act 1989, relatedLegislation, Official Secrets Act 1939]
-
A.
Official Secrets Act 1920
The Official Secrets Act 1920 is a UK law that strengthened and expanded earlier official secrets legislation by broadening the range of security-related offences and powers concerning espionage and the protection of sensitive government information.
-
B.
Official Secrets Act 1911
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.
-
C.
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.
-
D.
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.
-
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 1939 Target entity description: The Official Secrets Act 1939 was a United Kingdom law that strengthened and clarified earlier official secrets legislation, particularly concerning national security and the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive government information.
-
A.
Official Secrets Act 1920
The Official Secrets Act 1920 is a UK law that strengthened and expanded earlier official secrets legislation by broadening the range of security-related offences and powers concerning espionage and the protection of sensitive government information.
-
B.
Official Secrets Act 1911
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.
-
C.
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.
-
D.
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.
-
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 (40)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom
ⓘ
United Kingdom legislation ⓘ |
| aimsToPrevent |
espionage against the United Kingdom
ⓘ
leaks of sensitive defence information ⓘ |
| amends | Official Secrets Act 1911 ⓘ |
| appliesToJurisdiction |
England and Wales
ⓘ
Northern Ireland ⓘ Scotland ⓘ |
| containsProvisionOn |
evidential rules for proving offences under the Official Secrets Acts
ⓘ
presumption of purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state ⓘ |
| country | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| enactedInContextOf |
Second World War
ⓘ
linked to:
World War II
preparations for war ⓘ |
| follows | Official Secrets Act 1911 ⓘ |
| governs | conduct of persons with access to sensitive government information ⓘ |
| isPartOfLegalFramework |
United Kingdom national security law
ⓘ
linked to:
United Kingdom defence legislation
United Kingdom secrecy legislation ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| languageOfWork | English ⓘ |
| legalArea |
constitutional law
ⓘ
criminal law ⓘ security law ⓘ |
| legalStatus | amending legislation ⓘ |
| legislativeBody |
Parliament of the United Kingdom
ⓘ
linked to:
British Parliament
|
| partOf |
Official Secrets Acts
ⓘ
linked to:
Official Secrets Act
|
| purpose |
to clarify offences relating to disclosure of official information
ⓘ
to protect information affecting the safety or interests of the state ⓘ to strengthen earlier official secrets legislation ⓘ |
| regulates |
disclosure of information by Crown servants
ⓘ
disclosure of information by government contractors ⓘ handling of official documents ⓘ |
| subjectMatter |
defence information
ⓘ
espionage ⓘ government information ⓘ national security ⓘ official secrets ⓘ unauthorized disclosure of information ⓘ |
| typeOfOffence |
offence relating to communication of restricted information
ⓘ
offence relating to information useful to an enemy ⓘ offence relating to official documents ⓘ |
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 1939 Description of subject: The Official Secrets Act 1939 was a United Kingdom law that strengthened and clarified earlier official secrets legislation, particularly concerning national security and the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive government information.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.