An undercover police officer is an officer who adopts a different name, background and appearance in order to infiltrate a group. Normally, this is to collect evidence to bring about criminal charges. Undercover officers work as part of an operation, supported by back office staff and managers. Most will undergo formal training. Since 2000, they have been governed by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
Terminology associated with undercover work includes:
- Deployment: when an officer is formally sent out as an undercover.
- Legend / Cover: the persona and background details adopted by an undercover to present to their targets.
- Tradecraft: the tools and techniques used by an undercover to create their cover and legend, and to infiltrate or gain the trust of groups.
- The Field: the area of deployment.
- Exit / Exfiltration: when an undercover officer is withdrawn from the field, and the conditions under which it is done for their protection, or to prevent suspicion.
- Handler: a later development where an undercover was assigned a permanent manager who looked after communications with the undercover, attended to bureaucratic issues and liaised with more senior managers around tasking and permissions to attend events / travel abroad.
The undercover police with which the Undercover Policing Inquiry is concerned were distinct from other police undercovers for the most part. They belonged to particular units: the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) or the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). Their objectives were not so much about tackling individual crime but providing intelligence relating to public order or subversion.
For the SDS and NPOIU, infiltrations were different from ‘plain-clothes work’, where Special Branch officers attended protests and other events to report on them incognito. These undercovers adopted an entirely different identity and went to live among their targets, including having their own cover residences. The duration of time spent undercover averaged three to five years.
While undercover, they had minimal contact with the rest of the police. The SDS had several safehouses around London where the undercovers met up once or twice a week with managers and to socialise with each other. These safehouses were where intelligence debriefings and taskings took place, and where managers kept an eye on the welfare of the officers.
While in the field, the undercovers were isolated from the rest of the police for days at a time, though later there was a practice of phoning the SDS back office daily. They would also spend considerable time away from their families, although regular visits to their home and holidays did take place.
NPOIU undercovers worked somewhat differently, having a geographical spread of operations. However, they liaised closely with their handlers, with the mobile communicatioins technology that had developed by that time allowing them to stay in very close contact.
SDS undercovers were all recruited as constables in the Metropolitan Police Special Branch; some progressing to the rank of Sergeant while undercover. NPOIU undercovers also appear to have been of the rank Detective Constable, but drawn from police forces across the country, and not necessarily Special Branch.