If you think that spies exist only in Hollywood films about the Cold War or Soviet films about scouts, then you are deeply mistaken. In the modern world, espionage and its methods are actively developing. Political leaders of world powers cooperate with each other, clearly realizing that mutual espionage continues to this day in all spheres of life: politics, business. Special agents are developing new, modern methods to combat international and industrial espionage.
What is spying?
Under espionage is understood:
- The collection of secret data by any illegal means (theft of documents, bribery of officials).
- Disclosure, use of data constituting a secret, without the knowledge of their owner, by the person who recognized them.
Information regarding the activities of legal entities and individuals is of value not only for organizations and citizens themselves, but also for their competitors and ill-wishers. This is the reason for the impossibility of its disclosure either because of the interest of the persons themselves or by virtue of an indication of the law. Non-disclosed information is the secret of a particular field of activity.
Types of industrial espionage can be legal and illegal.
Espionage object
The object of a criminal assault is a legal relationship that forms when handling information constituting a commercial secret. Information, and not the medium (disk, diskette, paper document) on which it is located, is the subject of a crime.
An infringement on secret information may be deliberately thought out if the disclosure or use of the specified data is carried out by a person who knew the secret information at the time he performed his official duties or performed service (including state).
The charge of espionage is brought against people who, through their illegal actions with information, can harm business entities or civilians. You need to know that the illegal disclosure of personal information against the will of an individual is a violation of his rights to the inviolability of his personal life, prescribed in the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
Subjects of espionage
The subject of a criminal assault or spy may be any person:
- over sixteen years;
- became the owner of secret data constituting an industrial secret, by virtue of his labor duties;
- acting to achieve a criminal result for any reason and by any means available to it.
trade secret
Information constituting a trade secret is data of any nature (economic, industrial, technical, political).
Banking and commercial secrets have a common legal basis, but differ in volume and content characteristics. Bank secrecy has a set of special features, but it always has value and therefore is a kind of commercial secret.
Bank secrecy information:
- personal data of a bank client;
- information about operations, customer accounts, deposits and liabilities, bank cells;
- other information established by a commercial bank.
Of great importance in the sphere of the circulation of information constituting the secret of the banking sector is the moment of the need to provide such information to authorities and officials. The law provides a list of persons and organizations that have the ability to request data:
- Customers or their representatives. In the event of the death of the client, the data shall be communicated to the persons registered in the will left in custody at the bank, to the notary offices for the clients' inheritance affairs.
- Foreign consular offices (in relation to accounts of citizens of foreign states).
- State structures and their officials (representatives of the courts, the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, the Federal Tax Service, the customs authorities of the Russian Federation) in accordance with paragraph two of Article 857 of the Civil Code.
- Investigation authorities on cases in their proceedings with the permission of the prosecutor.
- Rosfinmonitoring authorized to take all possible measures to counter the legalization of illegally earned income.
The Central Bank of the Russian Federation does not have the right to disclose information from reports of commercial banks received by it as a result of the performance of its control functions. Audit organizations and their employees engaged in their professional activities are not entitled to disclose to third parties data on client transactions, accounts, deposits and liabilities in credit organizations.
Almost all information received by inspectors on legal entities and citizens is a tax secret. The exception is:
- information disseminated by a person on his own or with his consent;
- TIN;
- information about violations in the field of tax legislation, measures of responsibility for these offenses;
- information provided to executive bodies of foreign states.
Information is secret when:
- has commercial value due to non-disclosure to unauthorized citizens and organizations;
- access to it is restricted to unauthorized persons in accordance with a regulatory legal act;
- the owner of the information takes measures to prevent the illegal receipt and disclosure of information, that is, introduces a limited mode of access to secrets.
An industrial secret allows its holder or distributor:
- increase revenues and reduce costs;
- make a profit;
- Avoid unreasonable risks;
- maintain a leading position in the market for goods;
- get benefits (increase brand awareness).
Open information
Information that cannot constitute an industrial secret is determined by regulatory legal acts:
- constituent documents (company charter, decisions of the founders meeting, certificate of registration, certificate of tax registration);
- documents permitting private business (registration certificates, licenses, permits, patents);
- information on reporting forms on economic activity, financial condition;
- other information necessary for the correct calculation and transfer of tax payments and other mandatory fiscal payments;
- documents on the payment of fees, duties and obligatory payments;
- annual financial statements of the enterprise;
- information regarding privatization, information about the issuer of securities officially traded on exchanges.
Normative acts
The distribution of classified information is governed by the following laws:
- Civil Code of the Russian Federation;
- Trade Secret Act.
- The list of confidential information approved by the Presidential Decree.
How to find out the secret?
The objective side of industrial espionage is to collect information that makes up a secret. Ways can be very diverse. A necessary condition for qualifying an act as espionage is the lack of free access to information and the owner taking all measures to protect classified information.
The methods of industrial espionage include:
- theft of information constituting a secret (theft of documents, removable media);
- bribery and blackmail of company officials;
- blackmail (threats) of the owners of secrets by the possibility of its disclosure, ransom requirements for the return of information media;
- technological methods (spyware, hacker attacks on computer networks of organizations).
Punishment for espionage
The current version of Art. 183 of the Criminal Code contains various penalties for espionage. The severity of punitive measures depends on the composition of the act. The most severe punishment from two to seven years in prison is provided as a last resort.
| Corpus delicti | Type of punishment |
| Fine | Deprivation of office | Correctional | Forced |
| work |
| maximum number of years |
| Collection of data constituting a secret in any illegal way | up to five hundred thousand rubles. or in the amount of income per year | - | 1 | 2 |
| Illegal distribution or use of information without the consent of its owner by a person to whom it was entrusted or became known through official activities | up to one million rubles. or in the amount of income for a period of up to two years | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| Acts that caused major damage or made out of personal financial interest | up to one and a half million rubles. or in the amount of income for a period of up to three years | 3 | - | 5 |
| Grave deeds | - | - | - | 5 |
Espionage qualification
Responsibility for espionage is determined on the basis of committed criminal acts. The actions provided for in the first and second paragraph of the article belong to the category of actions of a criminal nature of minor gravity, the third to moderate, the fourth to serious criminal acts.
Illegal disclosure should be understood as all actions leading to acquaintance or to the possibility of acquaintance with data that is a secret, an unlimited circle of persons (for example, through publication in the media or the Internet space) or a specific interested person. Unlawful disclosure involves:
- the performance of actions that are understood as dissemination, but these actions are caused by the lack of consent of the owner of the relevant data;
- violation of the ban on the publication of information, including the dissemination of classified data as a result of a violation of the procedure for their provision to other persons and organizations.
Illegal dissemination may consist of using information in the personal mercenary interests or interests of certain enterprises interested in possessing such information (for example, to develop their own strategies for conduct during elections). If at the same time the guilty person had a desire in return for the available information without fail to receive monetary compensation, or the secret information had to be used to profit in extraneous entrepreneurial activity, then there are signs of a crime described in article 183 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
It is not necessary to qualify an act as action under the first and second parts of an article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on espionage of harmful consequences. At the time of the beginning of the collection by illegal methods of information constituting a commercial, tax, banking secret, or the disclosure or use of this information, industrial espionage is committed. An article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in part three provides for the existence of pecuniary damage in excess of two hundred and fifty thousand rubles for the qualification of an act, and in part four - especially grave consequences.
Absolutely any motive for qualifying an act as a crime does not matter. In a qualified composition, the motive for committing a crime can become important for its qualification, if we are talking about the personal financial interest of the spy.
History of industrial espionage
History has known examples of crimes in the field of theft of secrets of the production of certain objects and still knows a million. We list the main ones:
- Theft of Chinese silk production technology by two Nestorian monks in 522 A.D. e. They exported components forbidden for transportation from China in their walking poles with hiding places. This is the first example of large-scale state industrial espionage in history. The value of this information, with knowledge gained from other secret places about weaving machines, has led to the creation of an entire industry in the Eastern Mediterranean.
- Soviet intelligence agents in the 30s of the XX century brought Ceylon seedlings of tea bushes to the Georgian SSR.
- Samuel Slater stole (remembered) weaving technology from the UK and founded the first American weaving factory in 1789.
- British industrial spies exported banned rubber-bearing agricultural crops from Brazil and cultivated it in Malaya. Thereby revealing the secret of natural rubber.
- In 1985, Eugene Mayfield, a former employee of Procter & Gamble, stole and tried to sell a strategic marketing plan that aimed at boosting Crest toothpaste sales. The transaction on the sale of valuable information fell through, the unsuccessful spy was tied to a crime scene with marked bills.
- In 1998, Caddilac Gage filed a lawsuit in court about the possible theft of its industrial documentation. The court was lost due to poor organization of protection of production buildings.
Espionage (information gathering) is thriving to this day. International espionage is relevant in connection with the aggravated relations between the actors of world powers. The theft of advanced technologies and ideas will never stop as long as there is competition in private business, which is the engine of progress. The improvement of criminal methods makes the owners of any trade secret carefully protect it from those who want to get rich after its resale to competitors.