An officer from the Met Police, known as N596, used the cover name Rod Richardson while working for the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU).
The Undercover Policing Inquiry confirmed on Thursday that the officer had used a name based on a dead child.
Scotland Yard said it would offer a personal apology to the dead boy’s mother, Barbara Shaw, who first made the complaint in 2013.
Jules Carey, Mrs Shaw's solicitor, said: "The gathering and use of dead children's identities by police officers for cover names was macabre and a gross intrusion into the private lives of families.
"The Metropolitan Police used Rod Richardson, Mrs Barbara Shaw's deceased son, as a cover identity between 2000 and 2003.
"The appropriation of her dead child's identity has caused her hurt and offence but so too has the fact that it has taken almost four years for the police to admit to her that her son's identity was used.
"The complaint she lodged with the Metropolitan Police in 2013 remains outstanding."
Some 42 cases have been found where dead children's names were used to provide cover identities for officers by the inquiry, launched last year to probe undercover police operations conducted by English and Welsh police forces in England and Wales since 1968.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "We acknowledge this tactic has caused Mrs Shaw, whose deceased son Rod Richardson's identity was used, huge hurt and offence.
"The MPS will make every effort to meet with Ms Shaw, if she wishes, to apologise to her in person and explain how this came to be."
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