In espionage

Espionage

Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...

, a field agent is an agent who works in the field as opposed to one who works at the office or headquarters

Headquarters

Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility managing all business activities...

. A field agent can work alone or in a group but usually has a case officer who is in charge.

Field agents can be undercover

Undercover

Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...

, and travel using fake passport

Passport

A passport is a document, issued by a national government, which certifies, for the purpose of international travel, the identity and nationality of its holder. The elements of identity are name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth....

s that may be under the name of a front organization

Front organization

A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...

 or shell corporation. Field agents can be armed, but the weapon is always concealed in order to blend in with the masses and not stick out.

Field agents are often present in fiction, though their duties and actions can be quite different in reality.

See also

• Espionage
  Espionage
  Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
  
  
• Agent handling
  Agent handling
  In intelligence organizations, agent handling is the management of agents, principal agents, and agent networks by intelligence officers typically known as case officers.-Human intelligence:...
  
  
• Double agent
  Double agent
  A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
  
  
• Special agent
  Special agent
  Special agent is usually the title for a detective or investigator for a state, county, municipal, federal or tribal government. An agent is a worker for any federal agency, and a secret agent is one who works for an intelligence agency....
  
  
• Non-official cover
  Non-official cover
  Non-official cover is a term used in espionage, particularly by national intelligence services, for agents or operatives who assume covert roles in organizations without ties to the government for which they work. Such agents or operatives are typically abbreviated in espionage lingo as a NOC...
  
  (NOC)