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Intelligence and Security Act 2017

Repeals and amendments - Amendments to Crimes Act 1961

254: New section 78AA inserted (Wrongful communication, retention, or copying of classified information)

You could also call this:

"Keeping secrets: Don't share or keep secret information without permission"

Illustration for Intelligence and Security Act 2017

If you have access to secret information, you must be careful with it. You can get in trouble if you share this information with someone else without permission, or if you keep it or copy it without being allowed to. This applies to you if you have a special clearance to access secret information, or if someone has shared secret information with you in confidence. You must follow any instructions from the right people to return secret information that you have. Secret information is things that the government has marked as only accessible to people with a special clearance, or information from another country that is also secret. The rules about what is secret are decided by the New Zealand Government Security Classification System, which you can find on the internet. If you break these rules, you could go to prison for up to 5 years. This can happen even if you are outside of New Zealand when you break the rules. You can find more information about what is considered official information by looking at section 78.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6921310.

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253: Amendments to Crimes Act 1961, or

"Changes to the Crimes Act 1961 law"

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255: Section 78B amended (Consent of Attorney-General to proceedings in relation to espionage or wrongful communication, retention, or copying of official information), or

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Part 8Repeals and amendments
Amendments to Crimes Act 1961

254New section 78AA inserted (Wrongful communication, retention, or copying of classified information)

  1. After section 78, insert:

    78AAWrongful communication, retention, or copying of classified information

    1. Every person specified in subsection (2) is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years if the person, within or outside New Zealand,—

    2. knowingly or recklessly, and with knowledge that he or she is acting without proper authority, communicates any classified information to any other person; or
      1. knowing that he or she is acting without proper authority, retains or copies any classified information; or
        1. knowingly fails to comply with any directions issued by a lawful authority for the return of any classified information that is in his or her possession or under his or her control.

          1. Subsection (1) applies to—

          2. a person who holds, or has held, a government-sponsored national security clearance to access classified information; or
            1. a person to whom classified information has been disclosed in confidence if—
              1. the disclosure is authorised; and
                1. the person knows that the disclosure is in respect of classified information.

                2. In this section,—

                  classified information means—

                  1. information that—
                    1. is, or was, official information; and
                      1. is classified under the New Zealand Government Security Classification System as being accessible only to persons who have a national security clearance:
                      2. foreign government information that is—
                        1. classified in a foreign country; and
                          1. accessible only to persons having a government-sponsored national security clearance

                          New Zealand Government Security Classification System means the security classification system applying to official information that is published (and from time to time amended) on an Internet site maintained by or on behalf of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service

                            official information has the meaning given to it by section 78A(2).