operational contact (KO)

A category of collaboration with the SB in which a person secretly passed on information without a written pledge to collaborate.

According to the glossary of the IPN Archival Inventory, the KO category was formally introduced by operational instruction no. 006/70 of 1970, although it had previously existed within the confidential contact (KP) category. A KO ranked lower than a secret collaborator but in practice could be a fully fledged collaborator. No written declaration was taken from a KO, which is why this was the form most often used to maintain contact with members of the PZPR.¹

According to the IPN, an operational contact file contained the documents on establishing the contact, operational material, receipts for payments, and reports or notes from meetings; it was archived on the same rules as TW files. The intelligence service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had a separate category of the same name (see Department I operational contact).²