1. to assign a higher security classification to (information or documents) than is necessary or warranted
Usage: chiefly used in government and military contexts

Examples

• The agency was criticized for overclassifying routine administrative documents.
• Officials tend to overclassify information out of an abundance of caution.
• Overclassifying records makes it harder for researchers to access historical data.
• The government's practice of overclassifying sensitive materials has drawn scrutiny from transparency advocates.
• Auditors found that many files had been overclassified at the secret level when they should have been marked confidential.