What is "cleanskin"

n. 1 (context Australia English) An unbranded animal. 2 Someone with no prior criminal record, a person with no previous convictions; loosely, someone who has not done anything wrong before, an unblemished character. 3 (context Australia NZ English) An unlabelled bottle of wine. 4 An undercover police officer who has not done a particular task before. 5 (context cricket English) A cricket bat with no maker's logo

Within the vernacular of counter-terrorism agents and police officers, a cleanskin is an undercover operative whose identity is not known to the forces he or she is tasked to infiltrate. This is usually because such an agent has not conducted any prior undercover activity.

The phrase entered wide currency with a slightly different meaning in the United Kingdom following the London bombings of 7 July 2005. The four bombers involved in those bombings were reported in the press to be "cleanskins", according to police sources, meaning that their profiles did not fit the expected profile of bombers.

Terrorist groups, smugglers, and others performing secretive activities prefer to subvert cleanskins as there is less chance that they will arouse suspicion. For example, a person with previous convictions for importing drugs is more likely to be detained than a person never convicted.

In Australia, cleanskin wine is a term for wine whose label does not indicate the winery or the winemaker's name. It is typically sold at a low price.

Cleanskin may refer to:

• Cleanskin (animal) or maverick, an unbranded range animal
• Cleanskin (film), a 2012 British terrorist thriller starring Sean Bean and Charlotte Rampling
• Cleanskin (security), an undercover operative unknown to his or her targets, or a terrorist unknown to national security services
• Cleanskin (wine), unbranded wine
• Cleanskin, an album by Brian Cadd
• " Clean Skin", an episode of the television drama Homeland

Cleanskin is a 2012 British spy thriller film written and directed by Hadi Hajaig and starring Sean Bean, Abhin Galeya, Charlotte Rampling, James Fox, Tuppence Middleton, Shivani Ghai and Michelle Ryan. The story is set in London. The film's title, " cleanskin", is a term for an undercover operative unknown to his or her targets, or, as more commonly used in the United Kingdom following the London bombings, an extremist with no previous convictions, so therefore unknown to national security's services.