Several Afghan interpreters living in the UK only found out on Tuesday that their data was among the thousands accidentally leaked by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The Sulha Alliance, a charity which supports Afghan interpreters and their families, said they had been “upset and unsettled” after learning of the news which came following the lifting of an unprecedented superinjunction after more than 600 days.
Professor Sara de Jong, chair and co-founder of the Sulha Alliance, told the Express: “While this data breach was the most severe and most recent, it is not the first time that the safety of Afghans has been compromised by the UK Government. These Afghans protected us and they deserve our protection in return. It is a horrible irony that the UK Government had to save Afghans from their own data blunder, instead of prioritising those who are the Taliban’s prime target.”
The data leak occurred in February 2022 when a Government worker accidentally emailed a dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) relocation scheme outside of a secure government system.
He sent the email in an attempt to verify information, believing the dataset to only contain around 150 rows of information, but it contained around 33,000.
The MoD only became aware of the breach when excerpts of the dataset were anonymously posted onto a Facebook group in August 2023.
The leak, which prompted fears of a Taliban “kill list”, has only just been made public knowledge due to the superinjunction applied for under the then Tory government in 2023.
It is thought the blunder may have put up to 100,000 people at risk of death or serious harm from the Taliban, which retook control of Afghanistan in 2021.
On Tuesday, Defence Secretary John Healey offered a “sincere apology” on behalf of the Government for the breach which led to the creation of an £850 million secret relocation scheme.
It is thought around 24,000 people, including family members, affected by the breach have arrived or will come to the UK.
The Government expects all Afghan relocation schemes to cost the taxpayer up to £6 billion.
Both the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK have called for a public inquiry.