The Government Protective Marking System is the national standard for classifying a document, file or other information according to its value and the impact if it is wrongly disclosed. It allows government organisations and agencies share information - paper or electronic - with confidence.

It also helps compliance with the key principles in the Data Protection Act and to maintain open and honest dealings with the public.

Basics

In this section you will find out what the Government Protective Marking Scheme is, why we need to use it, the different levels of protection involved and explore the definition of compromise and its consequences.

Working with Protectively Marked Materials

This section covers the details of identifying, sending, receiving, storing and disposing of protectively marked materials.

More Complex Questions

This section covers some frequently asked and more complex questions that arise from using the GPMS including GPMS and the Data Protection Act, GPMS and the Freedom of Information Act, levels of clearance and dealing with organisations who don’t use protective marking.

• Understand what the GPMS is and why the organisation needs it.
• Understand the levels of protective marking, who decides on the levels and the kind of information included at each level.
• Know how clearance and access works.
• Be able to recognise protectively marked material.
• Be able to describe when information is compromised.
• Be able to describe the consequences of compromise for different levels of protective marking.
• Understand how to correctly mark new documents, files and materials.
• Understand how to send, store and dispose of the various levels of protectively marked information securely.
• Understand how to receive protectively marked information.
• Understand the procedures for working out of the office.
• Understand what to do if: Material has been compromised; The "consequences of compromise" have changed for a piece of information; Receiving Information for which they are not cleared; Information from another organisation should be re-classified; Receiving material from another organisation with no protective marking at all.