The details of more than 100 Britons including spies and special forces were included in a huge data leak that resulted in thousands of Afghans being secretly relocated to the UK, it has been revealed.
Defence sources have said that details of MI6 spies, SAS and special forces personnel featured in the spreadsheet after they had endorsed Afghans who had applied to be brought to the UK.
The dataset, containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap), was released “in error” in February 2022 by a defence official.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) became aware of the breach more than a year later, when excerpts of the spreadsheet were anonymously posted in a Facebook group in August 2023.
Other details leaked included the names and contact details of the Arap applicants and names of their family members.
The information was revealed on Tuesday, July 15, after a super-injunction was lifted by a High Court judge.
Defence Secretary John Healey offered a “sincere apology” on behalf of the British Government for the data breach in a statement on Tuesday.
He later told the Commons the spreadsheet contained “names and contact details of applicants and, in some instances, information relating to applicants’ family members, and in a small number of cases the names of members of Parliament, senior military officers and Government officials were noted as supporting the application”.
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|Details of more than 100 Britons were involved in the data leak
“This was a serious departmental error,” he added.
Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge also apologised on behalf of the former Conservative government, which was in power when the leak happened and when it was discovered more than a year later.
Arap was responsible for relocating Afghan nationals who had worked for or with the UK Government and were therefore at risk of reprisals once the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021.
Between 80,000 and 100,000 people, including the estimated number of family members of the Arap applicants, were affected by the breach and could be at risk of harassment, torture or death if the Taliban obtained their data, judges said in June 2024.
GETTY | Defence Secretary John Healey officered a 'sincere apology' after the data breach came to light on Tuesday
However, an independent review, commissioned by the Government in January, concluded last month that the dataset is “unlikely to significantly shift Taliban understanding of individuals who may be of interest to them”.
The breach resulted in the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme – the Afghanistan Response Route – by the previous government in April 2024.
The scheme is understood to have cost around £400million so far, with a projected cost once completed of around £850million.
Millions more are expected to be paid in legal costs and compensation.
Around 4,500 people, made up of 900 Arap applicants and approximately 3,600 family members, have been brought to the UK or are in transit so far through the Afghanistan Response Route.
A further estimated 600 people and their relatives are expected to be relocated before the scheme closes, with a total of around 6,900 people expected to be relocated by the end of the scheme.
Projected costs of the scheme may include relocation costs, transitional accommodation, legal costs and local authority tariffs.
The case returned to the High Court in London on Thursday, sitting in a closed session in the morning where journalists and their lawyers were excluded.
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|The leaked data set contained the names of almost 19,000 people
Private hearings exclude the public and press but allow the parties in the case to remain, closed hearings require specific lawyers who can deal with sensitive issues, including national security.
During the public part of the hearing, Mr Justice Chamberlain said that while he needed to give lawyers for the MoD an “opportunity” to argue why a closed hearing was needed, “I will be scrutinising very carefully any justification for holding any part of this hearing in private, let alone in closed”.
"The super-injunction has now been lifted and if there are other matters that are capable of being reported in public, that needs to be able to happen straight away," Chamberlain said.
Also on Thursday, Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) requested a number of documents used in the super-injunction proceedings be provided to it “immediately”.
This includes intelligence assessments from the MoD and the Joint Intelligence Organisation, as well as the unredacted report of retired civil servant Paul Rimmer.
ISC chairman Lord Beamish continued that the committee had also asked for the reasons why barristers for the Government previously told the Court of Appeal that information about the breach could not be shared with the ISC.
Thousands of Afghans are poised to sue the MoD as a result of the data leak.
Some people on the list only discovered their details had been made public after the super-injunction was lifted.
900 Afghans are set to receive legal support and their lawyers have claimed thousands more could join them.