The intelligence guards of Parliament have announced that it will begin an investigation into a major data violation, which compromised the identity of thousands of Afghans and British military officials.
Data leaks inspired a super-director, which meant that the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), which regularly reviews sensitive material, was not informed until last week.
Chairman Lord Bimish said that all intelligence documents related to the case should be provided “immediately” for review.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense (MOD) said that the government strongly welcomed the investigation of the data leak committee.
ISC Mi5, Mi6 and Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) work.
In a statement on Monday, Lord Bimish said that the cross-party group would conduct an inquiry into the role of the intelligence community and activity in relation to the loss of data “after considering the defense assessment” related to the case.
The colleague had expressed concern over the “serious constitutional issues” raised by handling of the first violation, which had been ignored for more than a year before requesting a gagging order.
ISC has argued that – under the Justice and Safety Act 2013 – is not a classification of materials, on which information can be withdrawn from the committee, its purpose is to investigate the work of the UK intelligence community.
An MOD spokesperson said: “We recognize the immediate need to understand how these important failures have occurred and make sure that the matter is appropriate accountability for the operation of the previous government.
“The Ministry of Defense has been instructed by the Defense Secretary to give full support to ISC and all parliamentary committees. If the support ministers and officials are asked to give accounts and evidence, they will do it.”
The leak was made by someone working at the UK Special Forces Headquarters in London in February 2022, inadvertently emailed a spreadsheet with more than 30,000 rehabilitation applications to a person outside the government, thinking that he was sending data to only 150 people.
Data Breech was identified only in August 2023, when a person in Afghanistan created a Facebook post to identify nine persons and indicated that he could leave the rest of the events, in a order of incidents that government sources said that “essentially blackmail”.
In September 2023, an application for a gagging order was applied, due to the risk of rebuke from the Taliban against around 19,000 Afghans, which appeared to work with the British Army in Afghanistan.
The High Court put a high-staple super-line in place, which means that the existence of gagging order cannot be reported until then A judge removed the order Last week.
The discovery of data breech forced the government to secretly install the Afghanistan response route (ARR) to bring some 7,000 of the people affected in the UK at an estimated final cost of about 850 meters.
A MOD spokesperson said that the government would “strongly protect” any legal action or bid for compensation, they were “fictional claims”.
It has also been reported that MOD will not give compensation to the affected people.
