Treaties on the exchange and protection of classified information

(Updated: January 2, 2025)

According to parliamentary records from The Netherlands, almost all western countries have signed, or plan to sign treaties on the exchange and protection of classified information. While many of them are public now, they replace secret agreements which date back to the 1960s.

Sources

For The Netherlands these treaties can easily be found via a new open source viewer called OpenTK, which builds upon an API provided by the staff of the Second Chamber (Tweede Kamer) of the Dutch parliament.

The most recent one is the "Treaty between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Sweden on the exchange and mutual security of classified information" that was signed in Stockholm on January 18, 2024. In November it was sent to the Second Chamber of parliament for silent ratification.

For the United States, some similar agreements can be found on the website of the Office of Treaty Affairs of the State Department. One example is the "Agreement Concerning Security Measures for the Protection of Classified Information" between the US and the Slovak Republic from May 13, 2022.


Purpose

The purpose of these treaties is to ensure that when classified information is exchanged, it gets the same level of protection in the country of the recipient. Thus they provide a safeguard for cooperation between government agencies (including law enforcement, intelligence and security services as well as the armed forces), but also between governments and corporations, for example when the government of one country grants a classified contract to a company in the other country.

The actual cooperation, whether a long-term partnership, temporary project or military procurement, is regulated by a multitude of treaties, agreements and contracts, which are often classified or at least confidential. For example, the collaboration between the NSA and other signals intelligence agencies is governed by secret bilateral Memorandums of Understanding (MoU), with details that can vary from country to country and from time to time.

> See also: What the NSA provides to its foreign partners, and vice versa

Origin

A Dutch parliamentary document shows that bilateral treaties on handling classified information apparently go back to the 1960s: an agreement on this topic was concluded with the United States on August 18, 1960, which was supplemented on April 6, 1981. However, at the request of the US, they were kept secret and were therefore not submitted to the Dutch parliament for ratification.

In 2017, the US agreed to declassify these earlier agreements, partly because The Netherlands no longer saw a compelling reason for keeping them secret. They were replaced by a new, public treaty that was signed on June 22, 2018. The aforementioned treaty with Sweden from January 18, 2024 also replaced a previous agreement that was signed on October 29, 1984.


Contents

All these treaties, both from The Netherlands and from the United States, contain more or less similar provisions, including:

- Classified information has to get a level of protection which is at least equal to the protection in the originating country.
- Each party designates an agency that acts as its "National Security Authority" (NSA) which is responsible for the implementation of the treaty.
- A comparison of the national classification levels, which in almost all western countries follow the British/American system of Restricted, Confidential, Secret and Top Secret.
- Access to classified information has to be limited to people with a need-to-know and a proper security clearance.
- Classified information shall not be released to a third party without explicit prior authorization by the originating country. This is the so-called "third party rule".
- Requirements for the transmission of classified information, whether in hard copy or electronic form.
- Classified information shall be stored in properly secured facilities, only accessible by authorized personnel.
- Verification of the security measures implemented by the other party and informing the other party about security standards.
- Inform the originating party about any loss or compromise of its classified information.
- How to conduct in case of classified contracts.

All these provisions are in rather general terms, further details can be agreed upon by the respective National Security Authorities.

> See also: The US Classification System

Bilateral treaties

According to parliamentary records from the past 15 years, The Netherlands has made preparations for treaties on handling classified information with at least the 22 countries listed below. When the treaty has already been signed, its date has been added:

- Albania
- Australia
- Belgium (November 5, 2019)
- Brazil (October 9, 2023)
- Bulgaria
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Estonia
- Finland (February 22, 2022)
- Latvia
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Norway (November 7, 2023)
- Ukraine (February 5, 2024)
- Poland (February 10, 2023)
- Portugal
- Romania
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain (November 23, 2021)
- Sweden (January 18, 2024)
- United States (June 22, 2018)

This list contains most of the member states of the European Union and NATO, except for Brazil which is of course a member of neither, but does have a considerable defence industry. In 2022, for example, the Dutch Armed Forces ordered new military transport aircraft from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer.

Interestingly, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Israel are not included in the list, despite the fact that they are important countries when it comes to military and intelligence cooperation. Given the long and close relationship with most of these countries, it seems not likely that negotiations have not yet started, so maybe the treaties with these particular countries are still classified.


International organizations

Besides the bilateral treaties between states, there are also ones between states and international and supranational organizations.

On August 19, 2002, for example, the countries that participate in the European Space Agency (ESA) signed an agreement with the ESA for the protection and the exchange of classified information. Undoubtedly there will be a similar agreement with NATO and one is also being prepared for the OCCAR, a European organization for collaborative armament programs.

The European Union has decided to sign "Agreements on security procedures for exchanging and protecting classified information" with 17 non-member states, ranging from Russia and the United States to Iceland and Liechtenstein(!). There's even such an agreement between the EU and the ESA, which was signed on May 22, 2024.

These international organizations have their own versions of the usual classification levels:
- ESA: ESA Confidential, ESA Secret, ESA Top Secret.
- NATO: NATO Restricted, NATO Confidential, NATO Secret, COSMIC Top Secret.
- OCCAR: OCCAR Restricted, OCCAR Confidential, OCCAR Secret.
- EU: EU Restricted, EU Confidential, EU Secret, EU Top Secret.

> See also: NSA's Foreign Partnerships

Membership of various military and intelligence groups
(click to enlarge)