Canadian Armed Forces members used their own personal social media accounts, computers and networks at home during the COVID-19 pandemic and gathered information about Canadians, violating intelligence-gathering rules, according to a newly released report.

The internal military report obtained by CBC News provides a new look behind the scenes at how a controversial military operation went so wrong.

"Everything you could imagine in a military operation went wrong in this case," said national security expert Wesley Wark.

"This is really an amateur effort. It was a badly conceived, badly managed operation that should have never come into existence at all."

Multiple units were tasked with collecting information about public opinion, including to help with decision-making during Operation Laser — the military's domestic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

That data-mining effort, first reported by the Ottawa Citizen, was part of a series of problematic activities involving an influence campaign that then Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance verbally shut down in April 2020, but some activities carried on for another six months — until Vance issued a written edict.

The newspaper's extensive reporting found senior military leaders viewed the pandemic as a chance to test out propaganda techniques on Canadians and head off civil disobedience by the public.