The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
