The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
