An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization.
Organizations which employ intelligence officers include armed forces, police, and customs agencies.
Intelligence officers make use of a variety of sources of information, including The actual role carried out by an intelligence officer varies depending on the remit of their parent organization.
Officers of domestic intelligence agencies (such as the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the UK's Security Service (MI5) and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) are responsible for counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, counter-proliferation and the detection and prevention of serious organized crime within their own countries (although, in Britain, the National Crime Agency is responsible for dealing with serious organized crime).
Sometime around 2000, the United States Intelligence Community adopted a more "corporate" vocabulary and began referring to agents as assets.