What is the difference between secret and top secret

Email address:. We all know the names of the three categories that executive agencies sort their classified data into. As it turns out, they all have to do with how serious damage can cause to the national secutiry in case of unauthorized disclosure:.

This is the lowest level of classification. Another interesting information here is how many people can actually get their hands on this documents. Office of the Director of National Intelligence that includes these data. In October the most recent report , 2,, people had access to confidential or secret information while 1,, people were eligible to receive top-secret clearance.

How Secret Is Top Secret? Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words? Love words? Need even more definitions? Just between us: it's complicated. Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'? How 'literally' can mean "figuratively". Literally How to use a word that literally drives some pe Is Singular 'They' a Better Choice? The awkward case of 'his or her'.

Take the quiz. However, this term means something completely different when using it for government classifications. Secret and Top Secret are two levels of classifications that are used when dealing with classified information.

This security clearance is most popular used by the United States Government. Other countries also have such policies in place. Information is classified based on its importance and its ability to wreak havoc. Like everything else, information works in a hierarchy, the lowest level is information that is available to almost everyone, with each rising step requiring specific approval for higher authorities. In this technological world, information has become quite costly and can cause a lot of problems for many people.

Unclassified information is information that is available to low-level government officers or authoritative figures such as police, sheriffs, etc. Though, it is not a official classification level, it is considered as an unofficial level for any government documents that do not have a classification level market.