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The Security Service: Personal (PF Series) Files
Description and record details
| Reference | KV 2 |
|---|---|
| Title | The Security Service: Personal (PF Series) Files |
| Date | 1913-1983 |
| Description | This series contains selected files from the First and Second World War periods and the inter-war years on suspected spies and double agents, renegades and suspected renegades (including P G Wodehouse), German intelligence (Abwehr) officers, Japanese intelligence agents, communist sympathisers and Soviet agents, and other groups in which the Security Service took an interest (including pacifist and anti-conscription groups). Not every case listed resulted in a finding of guilt. Please note: digital images of selected files from this series are available to download. |
| Note |
The descriptions for this series are provided by the transferring body when the records are transferred to TNA. They include short biographical background to the individuals in question, which may cover events or incidents not covered in that particular file. |
| Arrangement | The files are arranged in former reference order, under subseries and subsubseries within each transfer. |
| Separated material |
Information on the outcome of trials is not held by The National Archives. |
| Held by | The National Archives, Kew |
| Former reference in its original department | PF file series |
| Legal status | Public Record(s) |
| Language |
English, French German |
| Creator |
Security Service, 1931 |
| Physical description | 4657 file(s) |
| Restrictions on use | KV 2/1-59 to be seen under special supervision. |
| Access conditions | Open |
| Immediate source of acquisition |
from 1999 Security Service |
| Physical condition | Some pieces are reconstituted files of copies from microfiche of destroyed paper files. The microfiche continue to be retained by the Security Service. |
| Accruals | Series is accruing. |
| Selection and destruction information | Between 1909 and the early 1970s many files were destroyed. In the late 1960s when destruction caused operational difficulties, the policy was changed to retain all records. To save space, older files were microfilmed and the originals destroyed. In the early 1990s, after Communism's collapse and the decline in threats from subversion, the review and destruction process was re-instated. In 1998 the Advisory Council on Public Records recommended changes to the Service's criteria for selection of records for permanent preservation; and in particular that a detailed operational selection policy should be developed within the PRO's acquisition policy programme (published as OSP 8 in 2001). |
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