Born in Oslo, Janne Kristiansen graduated cand. jur. from the University of Oslo in 1979 and worked for a number of years as a high-profiled defence attorney. She was the head of Forsvarergruppen av 1977 between 1985 and 1990. Kristiansen worked as a public defender in Borgarting Court of Appeal from 1986 and in Moss District Court from 1990. Janne Kristiansen has participated in the making of several Norwegian Official Reports, such as NOU 2003.18 on national security and NOU 2003.21 on "Crime fighting and privacy - the police and public prosecutors' processing of information". As head of the Criminal Cases Review Commission between 2004 and 2009 she oversaw the decisions on the applications to appeal the criminal trials of Fredrik Fasting Torgersen and Arne Treholt. for Norwegian society for 2010 She was appointed to the position as director of the Norwegian Police Security Service on 25 September 2009. There were three other applicants, and Minister of JusticeKnut Storberget had specifically asked her to apply. In the period between her appointment and her accession in November, Roger Berg was acting director. As head of the PST Kristiansen was juxtaposed with the director of the National Police Directorate as one of the two top leaders of the Norwegian Police Service. During her time as head of the PST she oversaw the arrests of three men with residencies in Norway suspected of planning a terror attack on the Danish newspaperJyllands-Posten. In addition the terror attacks on the government quarters and Utøya on 22 July 2011 happened during her PST leadership. She resigned as director on 18 January 2012, after accidentally revealing Norwegian intelligence assets in Pakistan, with her deputy Roger Berg succeeding her as acting leader.
Janne Kristiansen resigned as PST leader on 18 January 2012 following an open hearing of the parliament's 22 July Committee that same day where she had been summoned to answer questions about Norwegian security and intelligence work. This unfolded after she had answered a direct question from Member of ParliamentAkhtar Chaudhry during the parliament's questioning of her. The question was whether Norway has cooperation with Pakistan in the intelligence arena, and Kristiansen's reply was interpreted as a confirmation that the Norwegian Intelligence Service had in fact a presence in that country. Both the two major news agencies in Norway, however, have written that representatives from the Norwegian Armed Forces have confirmed the presence of the Intelligence Service abroad on a number of previous occasions. This would make it uncertain whether confidential information was revealed during the hearing. In March 2012 police investigations of Kristiansen were dropped by the Bureau for the Investigation of Police Affairs.
