Biographic leverage is a term used in the field of

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

to describe a form of

blackmail Blackmail is a criminal act of coercion using a threat. As a criminal offense, blackmail is defined in various ways in common law jurisdictions. In the United States, blackmail is generally defined as a crime of information, involving a thr ...

in which a piece of negative information about an individual is used as leverage to persuade them to do something they are reluctant to do or to disclose secret information. This information could be about events in the individual's past, or their current personal life. Details of criminal activities or marital infidelity are common forms of biographic leverage; recruitment as a spy is a frequent goal of such activity. For example, the fact that William G. Sebold had been prosecuted for petty theft was used as biographic leverage by

Abwehr The (German language, German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', though the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context) ) was the German military intelligence , military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the ...

to persuade him to be involved in undercover

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

work in the 1940s. An attempt to gain leverage material on a heterosexual male target through entrapment of a sexual nature by a female operative is called a '' honeytrap'', ''honeypot'', or ''swallow''; an attempt to gain leverage material on a homosexual male target through entrapment of a sexual nature by a male operative is called a ''raven''. Attempts of this nature are so frequent and routine and taken so unseriously by the experienced HUMINT operator that the target is often better off reporting the leverage attempt to their handler/operator and letting the experienced professional deal with the attack than submit to the coercive force.

References

Blackmail Espionage techniques {{Espionage-stub