The Security Service of Ukraine is responsible for the protection of state secrets.

State bodies, local self-government bodies, enterprises, institutions and organisa-tions have the right to carry out activities related to state secrets, providing that they are granted a special permit to carry out such activities.

The SSU is responsible for issuing the special permits that are needed for an enter-prise, institution or organisation to conduct activities related to state secrets. This is defined by Article 20 of the Law of Ukraine On State Secrets (hereafter - the Law) and the Procedure for Organising and Ensuring Secrecy in State Bodies, Local Self-government, Enterprises, Institutions and Organisations, approved by the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated 18.12.2013 № 939 (hereafter - Proce-dure-939).

Special permits are issued by the SSU to enterprises, institutions or organisations if they provide evidence that they:

• Carry out or plan to carry out activities related to state secrets, in accordance with the powers, state tasks, programmes, orders and agreements (contracts).
• Have premises and the means of safely transporting and storing classified in-formation that meet the requirements for ensuring their secrecy, including en-suring that they cannot be accessed by third parties (unauthorised persons);
• Comply with the statutory requirements for ensuring secrecy, including the procedures for the admission and access of persons to state secrets, reception of foreign citizens and foreign delegations, and technical and cryptographic protec-tion of classified information.
• Have a Classified Records Office (CRO) or, if not, that the responsibility sits with its Head or an employee appointed for this purpose by the head of the enter-prise, institution or organisation.

The Classified Records Office (CRO)

The formation, reorganization or liquidation of the CRO can only be carried out with the prior consent of the enterprise, institution, organisation, the customers of the secret works or the SSU. In their activities, CROs interact with the Security Service of Ukraine and the CROs of other enterprises, institutions or organisations.

The CRO includes subdivisions, including cryptographic, technical protection of in-formation, secret office work and specific subdivisions depending on the field in which they operate.

To gain approval for the establishment of a CRO, the head of the enterprise, institu-tion or organisation, who has the authority to make such a decision, submits a re-quest to the SSU, which includes information about the set up of the CRO; its organi-sational and staffing structure; number of employees, the nature of secret works it will undertake, the characteristics of secret information (degree of secrecy, articles of the Code of information constituting a state secret, approved by the order of the Security Council of Ukraine from 12.08.2005 № 440 (hereinafter - ZVDT) and the activities it plans to undertake with regards to the state secrets.

The appointment of persons to the positions of deputy heads of enterprises, institu-tions or organisations, heads of the CRO and their deputies, as well as the granting of responsibility for state secrets to any individual employee can only be carried out after consultation with the SSU, the CRO and the customers of the state secrets. To submit such a request, a form signed by the head of the enterprise, institution or or-ganisation should be submitted to the SSU. The request should include:

• The details of the proposed appointment.
• Information on the preliminary coordination of this candidacy with the CRO or the customer. 
• The availability of a special permit for carrying out activities related to state se-crets, including its validity period and the established category of secrecy.

The following should be attached to the request:

• A copy of the document containing information about the functional responsibili-ties provided for the position for which the appointment is agreed (in the case of approval of the employee of the enterprise, institution, organization responsibili-ties for ensuring confidentiality are also sent copies of documents containing in-formation about functional responsibilities for the main position);
• The questionnaire for approval of appointment to the position of deputy head of the regime, chief or deputy head of the CRO in the form according to Annex 3 to Procedure-939, which is filled in and signed by a person, certified by the signature of the personnel officer and the CRO and sealed by CRO.

To obtain a special permit, the enterprise, institution or organisation submits an ap-plication to the SSU, which indicates:

• The name of the enterprise, institution or organisation.
• The name of the management body or jurisdiction that the enterprise, institu-tion or organisation belong to.
• The completed legal forms.
• The location of the enterprise, institution or organisation, the CRO premises and any other relevant premises that will be used for the storage of classified infor-mation.
• The grounds for obtaining the special permit (justification).

The application should also be appended with the review of how and where the clas-sified information will be transported and stored by the enterprise, institution or or-ganisation. 

The Commission will then be formed to check the state of secrecy at the enterprise, institution or organisation by the order of the head.

The commission includes employees of the CRO and representatives of other struc-tural units of the enterprise, institution or organisation, which have been granted access to state secrets in the appropriate form. If there is a special communication body at the enterprise, institution or organisation, then the commission should in-clude a representative and also representative of an individual who has access to the ciphers and encryption work.

The commission inspects the state of secrecy at the enterprise, institution, organiza-tion, finds out the conditions necessary for carrying out activities related to state se-crets, and draws up an act to verify the state of secrecy.     

The act of checking the state of secrecy must contain information about:

1. activities related to state secrets carried out or to be carried out by an enterprise, institution, organization, characteristics and amount of classified information used or to be used in connection with such activities, the state of secrecy, its compliance with the law in in the field of protection of state secrets
2. the structure of the CRO, its subordination, the number of employees and their functional responsibilities, the appointment of the head of the CRO or the employee responsible for keeping records and storage of classified documents and the imple-mentation of measures to ensure secrecy
3. availability and location of specially equipped premises (zones, territories) for car-rying out secret works, the required number of storages of material carriers of se-cret information, their compliance with the requirements for ensuring the secrecy regime
4. nomenclature of positions of employees of the enterprise, institution, organiza-tion, stay at which requires registration of access and granting access to state secrets (hereinafter - the nomenclature of positions), the number of positions provided by it and the actual number of employees who have already been granted access to state secrets
5. organization and condition of access and on-site regime, list of engineering and technical means of protection with indication of their compliance with the require-ments for ensuring the secrecy regime
6. availability of long-term and current plans to ensure secrecy, including during the reception of foreign delegations and the implementation of international coopera-tion, the state of their implementation
7. availability of special means of communication and special communication body, use of state ciphers and cryptographic means, state of their accounting
8. organization and state of secret office work, provision of technical protection of classified information
9. the results of control over the protection of state secrets (when and by whom the last inspection was conducted, what measures were taken to eliminate the identified shortcomings, implementation of proposals and recommendations, indicating the number and date of the decision to eliminate shortcomings, etc.)
10. proposals for granting a special permit to the enterprise, institution, organiza-tion

The act of checking the state of secrecy is signed by the members of the commission and approved by the head of the enterprise, institution, organization.

If a special permit is issued to an enterprise, institution, organization for the first time, the application and the act of checking the state of secrecy are drawn up and submitted to the SBU by the enterprise, institution, higher level organization or cus-tomer of secret works. The inspection report shall contain the following infor-mation:

1. activities related to state secrets carried out or to be carried out by an enterprise, institution, organization, characteristics and amount of classified information used or to be used in connection with such activities, the state of secrecy, its compliance with the law in in the field of protection of state secrets
2. the structure of the CRO, its subordination, the number of employees and their functional responsibilities, the appointment of the head of the CRO or the employee responsible for keeping records and storage of classified documents and the imple-mentation of measures to ensure secrecy
3. availability and location of specially equipped premises (zones, territories) for car-rying out secret works, the required number of storages of material carriers of se-cret information, their compliance with the requirements for ensuring the secrecy regime
4. proposals for granting a special permit to the enterprise, institution, organization

After receiving these documents, the SBU appoints a special examination.

The issue of granting a special permit to an enterprise, institution, organization and establishing the category of secrecy shall be considered by the SBU body within one month from the date of receipt of the relevant application.

In the event of a crisis situation threatening the national security of Ukraine, the an-nouncement of the decision to mobilize and / or impose martial law on the issue of granting a special permit for activities related to state secrets, military authorities, military units, institutions and organizations, other structural subdivisions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, other military formations, law enforcement agencies of special purpose, the State Special Transport Service, the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine, which are demobilized, completed, re-formed, documents.

For reference: the category of secrecy - a category that characterizes the im-portance and amount of information that constitutes a state secret, which is concen-trated in enterprises, institutions and organizations.

To conduct a special examination, the SBU body forms a special expert commission. If necessary, it may include specialists from other enterprises, institutions, organiza-tions in consultation with their leaders.

If the enterprise, institution, organization has a special communication body or en-cryption body and / or uses state ciphers and cryptographic means of protection of classified information, the special expert commissions include representatives of the State Special Service.

The results of the special examination are made out by the act of special examination in the form according to appendix 2 to the Order-939 which is submitted for consid-eration to the head of body of SBU for decision making.

On the basis of the submitted documents and the act of special examination, the SBU body makes a decision on granting a permit to the enterprise, institution, or-ganization and establishing the category of secrecy regime.

Issuance (renewal) of the permit is free of charge.

The validity of the special permit is set by the SBU body depending on the amount of secret work carried out by the enterprise, institution, organization, degree of secre-cy and the amount of information related to these works, which is a state secret, the category of secrecy, but may not exceed five years.

If a special permit is issued to an enterprise, institution, organization for the first time, the category of secrecy is established in accordance with the degree of secrecy of work to be carried out in accordance with their powers, state tasks, programs, orders, contracts (contracts), and such special permit should not exceed one year.

Refusal to grant a special permit is accepted by the SBU in the absence of conditions necessary for carrying out activities related to state secrets, as stated in the act of special examination with reference to regulations in the field of protection of state secrets.

Notices regarding the decision to refuse to grant a special permit shall be sent in writing by the SBU to enterprises, institutions, organizations that have applied, as well as enterprises, institutions, higher-level organizations or customers of secret works. The message sets out the requirements and recommendations for further ac-tion of the enterprise, institution, organization to prevent leakage of classified in-formation.

The presence of a special permit is the basis for the obligatory conclusion of an en-terprise, institution, organization of agreements with the units of the State Courier Service and the State Enterprise of Special Communication on the delivery of classi-fied correspondence.

Re-issuance of a special permit is carried out in the manner prescribed for its issu-ance.

In case of expiration of the special permit, the materials for its re-issuance shall be submitted to the SBU body not later than one month before the expiration of its va-lidity.

Military authorities, military units, institutions and organizations, other structural units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, other military formations that change the conditional name and / or location in case of announcement of the decision to mobi-lize, impose martial law, special permit is not reissued. The military administration body shall send a corresponding notification to the SBU body, which has issued a special permit, about such changes within three days.

Documentary materials related to the performance by the Security Service of Ukraine of the functions of a specially authorized body of state power in the field of protection of state secrets are to be sent to the address:

01601, Kyiv, 33 Volodymyrska St., Department of State Secrets Protection and Li-censing of the Security Service of Ukraine, or at the location of the regional bodies of the Security Service of Ukraine.

To obtain information on the procedure for granting (reissuing) a permit, contact the Department of State Secrets Protection and Licensing of the Security Service of Ukraine at tel. +38 (044) 408-49-24; (044) 408-47-62 and (044) 408-48-12.