Thousands of Afghans Secretly Relocated to Britain After Data Leak, Says UK Government

The British government has disclosed the scale and cost of a covert Afghan resettlement operation triggered by a sensitive data breach.

British Defence Secretary John Healey arrives in Downing Street, in London, on Sept. 3, 2024. Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire

Thousands of Afghans have been secretly resettled in the United Kingdom after a major data breach raised fears they could be targeted by the Taliban, the UK government said on Tuesday.

In early 2022, a spreadsheet containing the personal information of about 18,700 Afghan applicants who sought UK government support under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), and its predecessor, the Afghanistan Locally Employed Staff Ex-Gratia Scheme (EGS), was mistakenly released, the Ministry of Defence said in a July 15 statement.

“A small section of this spreadsheet briefly appeared online on 14 August 2023, which is when the previous Government first became aware of the incident,” the defence ministry said.

The data related to applications made on or before Jan. 7, 2022, and contained names and contact details of applicants and, in some instances, information about their family members, British Defence Minister John Healey said on Tuesday.

The then-Conservative government applied for a superinjunction from the High Court in September 2023. The superinjunction barred anyone from revealing the existence of the data breach or the injunction itself.

High Court Justice Martin Chamberlain formally discharged the superinjunction on Tuesday.

The Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) was launched in April 2024 for individuals who had not previously qualified for ARAP but were assessed to be at the highest potential risk of Taliban reprisals due to the breach.

Speaking in Parliament, Healey said that, to date, about 900 ARR main applicants who worked with British forces are either in Britain or in transit, along with 3,600 family members, at a cost of 400 million pounds ($535 million).

“I expect a similar sum to be the cost of those still to come,” Healey said.

He apologised for the incident and said the data breach “should never have happened.”

“It may have occurred three years ago under the previous government, but to all those whose information was compromised, I offer a sincere apology today on behalf of the British Government, and I trust the shadow defence secretary, as a former defence minister, will join me,” he said.

Safety Advice, New Security Measures

The defence ministry said on Tuesday that while there is currently no evidence the spreadsheet has been seen or used by others who might try to exploit the information, the government cannot rule out that possibility.

The ministry advised Afghans potentially affected by the data breach to stay vigilant, avoid contact with unknown individuals, secure their online accounts, and be cautious about disclosing their situation.

Healey said that the Ministry of Defence has installed new software to securely share data.

“We have installed new software to securely share data, and we have also completed a comprehensive review of the legacy Afghan data on the casework system,” he told Parliament.

The ARAP and ACRS schemes closed to new applications on July 1.