The previous government found out a secret Afghan rehabilitation plan after inadvertently leaked the personal data of thousands of people.
A dataset with a details of about 19,000 people applying to Britain after the country’s Taliban acquisition was issued in an error by a British defense officer in February 2022.
The Ministry of Defense (MOD) learned about Breech in August 2023 when some details were anonymously posted on Facebook.
In response to the leak, the government made a secret rehabilitation plan – which has so far seen 4,500 Afghans to come up with another 600 people in the UK and their immediate families.
The secret plan so far is £ 400m, said MOD, and is expected to cost more than £ 400m to £ 450m.
The existence of this Afghan response route, which was established in April 2024, was kept confidential by an prohibition, but can now be informed after a High Court verdict on Tuesday.
Unauthorized data violations were committed by an anonymous person in the mod and included a large number of Afghans who were potentially at risk from the Taliban.
Speaking at the House of Commons, Defense Secretary John Heela confirmed that the government was shutting down the scheme, but would still respect the proposals made by people in Afghanistan.
He offered those “honest waiver” to those whose details were included in the leaks.
He said that the leakage was being emailed as a prostitution as a result of a spreadsheet, which he had described as a “serious departmental error” – although the Metropolitan police have already decided that a police investigation was not necessary.
Hele said that the leak was “one of many data deficits” during that period.
In the leaked document, he said, the name, personal details and some family details of the applicants were included.
MOD has refused to say how many have been arrested or killed as a result of data breech.
Hele told MPs that an independent review found that it was “extremely probable”, a person would have been completely targeted as they appeared in the leaked document, and it assaulted the secret plan for “extremely important intervention”, which was looking at the “potential limited” risk posted by the leaks.
He also said that people who have been transferred to Britain have already been counted in immigration data.
The data included the names of those who applied for the Afghan transfer and aid policy (ARAP) scheme. As American soldiers completed their comeback in August 2021, the UK government established ARAP to process rapidly by those who were afraid of reprimanding the Taliban and taking them to the UK.
Arap has already been severely criticized in those years, since it was launched, it was a “disaster” and a “betrayal” by the Committee of Foreign Affairs with a 2022 investigation.
A superinjunction revealed the leak, but it was raised by a judge at the Royal Court of Justice today.
Hele told the House that even he was prevented from speaking about violations due to “unprecedented” prohibition, yet after being informed as the Shadow Defense Secretary.
While reading a summary of his verdict in the court, Shri Justice Chamberlain said the gagging order “gave rise to serious free speech concerns”.
He continued: “The impact of the superintendent was to completely close the general mechanism of accountability that works in a democracy.
“From this I describe as a ‘investigation vacuum’.”
