SENSITIVE files related to a military unit alleged to have shot unarmed civilians in the North have been lost by the BBC’s Panorama programme, the London Independent has reported.
The data is related to soldiers from the Military Reaction Force (MRF) which is alleged to have shot unarmed civilians in the North during the Troubles.
The information was reportedly among separate material downloaded from an online cache on to a memory stick and handed by a Panorama researcher to a third party, in protest at the way the BBC programme was handling a documentary about politics in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
But the newspaper claimed the file also contained confidential and sensitive information relating to a previous Panorama programme, Britain’s Secret Terror Force, broadcast in November.
The identity of at least one MRF serviceman is said to have been compromised, while the file also contained names and details of other senior military figures.
The Information Commissioner’s Office is believed to be investigating the data breach, which could lead to a criminal prosecution.
A BBC spokesman said: “There has been a lot of baseless speculation on the circumstances surrounding this programme. It’s not appropriate for us to comment further while there is an investigation by the ICO under way.”
See More: BBC, Files, Lost, Military Reaction Force, Panorama
