Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021
Public General Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021 (c. 4) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The act makes provision for the use of undercover law enforcement agents and covert sources and the committing of crimes in the undertaking of their duty. It was also referred to as the "Spy Cops Bill" – a reference to the UK undercover policing relationships scandal.
Background
The government stated that the act was drafted in response to a court ruling in December 2019 which permitted, in a marginal decision, MI5 and other agencies to commit crimes in order to prevent more serious crimes from occurring.
As a bill, the act was opposed by a number of political organisations and NGOs, including the international human rights advocacy organisation Amnesty International, the Green Party, Scottish National Party, Sinn Féin, and some Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs. In a statement, Amnesty International said:
It's hugely worrying that we’re a step closer to seeing this deeply dangerous bill become law. MPs are signing off on a licence for government agencies to authorise torture and murder.
Giving such disturbing powers to bodies including MI5 and the police could have devastating impacts.
We are now urging peers who care about the rule of law to introduce urgent amendments before the bill progresses further through Parliament.
“Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021” enters the record as public General Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Covert, Human and Intelligence can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q110267027. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.