MI5 involvement in drone project revealed in paperwork slip-up

Exclusive: Document produced by university cited agency as secret funder of research

For an agency devoted to secrecy and surveillance, it is an embarrassing slip-up. An inadvertent disclosure on a university document has revealed that MI5 is partly behind what was meant to be a covert bug and drone research project.

Ostensibly, Imperial College's research was to create a quadcopter system for charging remote agricultural sensors - but MI5's participation has emerged because somebody involved stated it was the secret second funder of the programme.