A crew member of HMCS Charlottetown based in Halifax is under investigation for allegedly storing classified information on his personal network and breaching military security protocols earlier this year.

According to documents filed in Halifax provincial court last week that were used to obtain a search warrant, the marine systems engineering officer used a Department of National Defence computer to store a classified file on his personal network drive.

The alleged breach was detected during a routine electronic audit of all HMCS Charlottetown staff for classified materials on Jan. 19 and reported to the Military Police Unit.

"This audit was conducted in response to several other recent unrelated security breaches that had occurred in Canadian Forces Base Halifax," reads the search warrant.

Upon finding the document, the information system security officer burned it to a CD and deleted it from the computer.

'Could potentially be damaging'

It's not clear exactly what was contained in the file, only that the accused's "personal network file had a classified file containing sensitive information, which could potentially be damaging to the security of the Canadian Armed Forces."

The accusations have not been proven in court, and no charges have been laid.

This is not the first security breach alleged to have occurred at the base.

In January, a man said he found a hard drive at a recycling depot he suspects previously belonged to the military.

There were several security breaches reported at the navy's training school at CFB Halifax earlier this year.

On Sept. 1, 2015, Halifax dockyard information security officers reported to military police that 1,066 secret documents dated between 2004 and 2009 were found in the web designer's personal network drive during a routine security scan.

And Jeffrey Deslisle, a former CFB Halifax member, is serving a 20-year sentence for espionage after selling classified information to Russia.