Opperation Shutter Retention Records

A little while back I wrote a bit about the Falklands and a few of the little facts that I found. One of the things that I found whilst looking through the pile was something about “Operation Shutter”.  It seemed to be mentioned in a number of different documents but was never released to the national archives. It got my attention because it was formally refused by the UK government and was stated that there is a retention instrument places upon the file to stop it coming to the public.

So, with the knowledge that I have gathered in doing this blog I thought that it would be interesting to find out more about this and see if I could find out when the file was going to be released to the national archive. A retention instrument is what the UK government uses to put a “hold” on a file coming to the public domain.  It is a way of making sure that files which are security sensitive to not come to the public until the security issue has been resolved.

I started my search with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The reasons is because from one of my other FoI requests, I heard that they had the powers to create and amend retention instruments. So when I asked them what they had imposed upon a MoD file… I was politely told they they didn't have this power.  Darn…  Never mind, worth a shot wasn’t it?  Anyway let's move on.

So, straight to the horse's mouth and asking the Ministry of Defence about the retention instrument. I simple asked them:

1) How long have you applied a Retention Instrument to the files relating to Operation Shutter

2) How many files do you have relating to Operation Shutter

And the response was interesting. Turns out that they have 3 files relating to this and that they are under review for release in 2025/6.  Which makes me wonder why this is happening. As they themselves stated, most of the other files have been released to the national archive from Operation Corporate (The code name given to the operation in the Falklands).

So this has got me wondering, why are these files under lock and key until then?  What could they possibly hold that needs to be kept from public eye.  Even if we remember that they stated that this was about examining Argentinian Air Fields, there must be something else in these file which is interesting.

The one thing that I can say from this is that It will be an interesting day in 2026 when all the files are released to us.  Wouldn't it be fun to see the full extent of what this operation did for us?  I can honestly say it will be an interesting day.