Australian officials have been briefed by Britain’s Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee about ‘D-Notices’. These are ‘advisory orders’ to the media on what the committee considers should not be published in relation to British military and intelligence operations.
Six months ago, Declassified Australia exclusively revealed planning for a new D-Notice system. New documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, reveal that in November 2022 a multitude of Australian government officials attended an online Teams briefing on the D-Notice system with Brigadier Geoffrey Dodds, the secretary of Britain’s Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee, Britain’s military censor. They came from seven departments and agencies: Attorney-General’s Department (AGD), Department of Home Affairs (DHA), Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Defence Department, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP), the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C).
The DSMA Committee issues DSMA-Notices, colloquially referred to as ‘D-Notices’. These are ‘advisory orders’ to the media on what the committee considers should not be published in relation to British military and intelligence operations. While theoretically voluntary, the DSMA Committee told the Australian officials at the briefing that it estimates 90 per cent of the UK’s media comply with D-Notices it issues.
The Australian government officials at the briefing took a sceptical view of the ‘voluntary’ nature of a new D-Notice system for Australia and put forward questions about the legal repercussions for journalists who don’t follow D-Notices or committee advice. The federal police were keen to know whether a journalist seeking advice from the DSMA Committee could use that fact as a defence against a prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, asking:
Is the fact that a journalist has sought advice from the DSMA, and that advice did not indicate a national security risk, a defence against the Official Secrets Act?
The DSMA Committee’s secretary told the AFP that there was “no legal basis for this”.
The AFP also wanted to know how the DSMA Committee handles UK journalists “who are clearly seeking to reduce risk of prosecution for (or even seek immunity from) publishing sensitive national security information that is arguably in the public interest”.
The secretary replied that public interest was “of no concern when issuing advice”.
An Attorney-General’s Department official at the briefing was particularly interested in knowing about the possibility of the committee breaching journalists’ confidentiality. The secretary replied that there is confidentiality about all communications with journalists and that: “HMG [His Majesty’s Government] and Police agree/accept” this arrangement. There could, however, be exemptions if the “credibility of the Secretary and the system is at stake”.
Regarding possible exemptions, Brigadier Dodds also remarkably stated: “[The] threshold is in the mind of the duty adviser. No governance documents exist.”
The AGD official also asked about what role the D-Notice committee played in providing evidence to assist in the prosecution of journalists. In response, the committee’s secretary claimed that he is “not required to submit evidence from discussions with media as part of police investigations or court proceedings”.
Further questions listed in the meeting agenda asked how the D-Notice system could be used to aid prosecutions:
- Was there a risk of a disconnect between the DSMA Committee’s opinions and what law enforcement could perceive as ‘unauthorised disclosure of sensitive information’?
- Did the DSMA Committee help law enforcement or police initiating legal action against journalists and give them information about the committee’s interactions with them?
- Could consultation with the Committee be used as a defence for prosecutions under the Official Secrets Act?
In response, Brigadier Dodds claimed the D-Notice system operates completely in secret, and that the public interest is “of no concern when issuing advice”.
Also requested by the Australian officials was the DSMA Committee’s internal review of their own system prepared in 2015, which included a list of stories that the DSMA Committee had issued advice on. The list included allegations of sexual abuse by Scottish government officials, details of Britain’s secretive Porton Down biological and chemical weapons laboratory, the circumstances of the death of Princess Diana, and the coronial inquest into the death of a GCHQ codebreaker that concluded an unlawful killing had occurred and that MI6’s involvement in the death was a ‘legitimate line of inquiry’.
Minutes of the briefing of the Australian officials obtained by Declassified Australia stated that:
- “Those who are not supportive of the [DSMA] system are mostly the strongest proponents of media freedom.”
- In some cases, the D-Notice system covers “transnational, serious and organised crime”.
- The D-Notice system faces challenges like “digital media” from overseas being able to publish without DSMA Committee intervention.
- The unwillingness of “tech giants” in participating in the D-Notice system, with the committee’s secretary believing the tech companies wanted to “settle a bargain with [the British] government”.
- The DSMA Committee’s secretary is technically a public servant hired by the Ministry of Defence; the DSMA Committee is run out of the Ministry of Defence building and the secretary has a Ministry of Defence email address; and the Ministry of Defence press office sees the DSMA Secretary as a ‘brother-in-arms’.
In response to a question from Australian officials asking whether there were instances of journalists publishing information against DSMA advice, the Committee’s secretary wrote:
Yes but very rarely. Tends to be extreme, non-msm [mainstream media] organizations. E.g.: Declassified UK (online pub). [Note: Declassified UK is not formally affiliated with Declassified Australia.]
The secretary cited instances of Declassified UK publishing a ministerial brief that was “inadvertently” sent to the outlet by the British Ministry of Defence in response to an FOI request, as well as the outlet publishing an article against the wishes of the DSMA Committee that named a British lieutenant-colonel who drafted a crisis management document for the government of the African nation of Cameroon. He also said that Declassified UK had “published embarrassing details of HMG [His Majesty’s Government] views on a developing country”. The mention of this example, in spite of the secretary’s saying it was of “no DSMA concern”, suggests the DSMA committee was proactively monitoring Declassified UK’s journalistic output.
When Declassified UK asked the DSMA committee’s secretary about being labelled “extreme”, he denied ever doing so, saying he used “the then timely example of the Cameroon article as an example of non-mainstream media not accepting DSMA advice”.
The Monday following the DSMA Committee’s briefing to the group of Australian officials, the Attorney-General’s Department’s (AGD) Andrew Warnes sent an email to attendees saying that the “AGD found it to be a highly useful session”. Subsequently, an Australian Federal Police official wrote to Warnes, saying that it was “very useful to hear firsthand how the UK system operates and how it may be applied to Australia” and noting that “the UK system’s efficacy is because of the [DSMA Committee’s] relationship with media that has been built over decades”.
Australian officials in the UK had begun contact with the DSMA Committee as early as August 2019, as we first revealed in Declassified Australia six months ago. Liaison and contact continued through to November 2022, well into the first term of the present Labor government.
In a Senate Estimates hearing in February 2026, Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge asked the Secretary of Home Affairs about the meetings with the DSMA Committee. The Department took the questions on notice and later answered:
Department of Home Affairs officials met with the UK Defence and Security Media Advisory Secretary between 5-10 December 2021 (exact date not known) and 10 May 2022.
Home Affairs also stated that the primary role in examining the D-Notice scheme was now with the Attorney-General’s Department.
Those two occasions that Home Affairs facilitated meetings with the DSMA Committee were a December 2021 meeting with then-Deputy Secretary Marc Ablong, and the May 2022 meeting First Assistant Secretary Warnes attended.
Declassified Australia has now revealed a further meeting of Australian officials with the DSMA Committee to discuss the D-Notice process was held on 2 November 2022, as described above. We contacted both the Department of Home Affairs and the Attorney-General’s Department to ask about the liaison held with the DSMA Committee. Home Affairs declined to provide any answer, and Attorney-General’s did not respond by the deadline for publication.
It is alarming that detailed discussions across a number of years and by so many government officials and departments have taken place about the planning for a D-Notice censorship scheme without any sharing of information, let alone discussion with the public.
This is an edited version of an article from Declassified Australia
William Evans
William Evans is a journalist currently studying a Bachelor of Journalism / Arts at the University of Queensland, majoring in Peace & Conflict Studies. He’s interested in war, intelligence, and politics. His website is www.willevans.com.au.