The UK government set up a secret Afghan relocation scheme after the personal data of thousands of people was inadvertently leaked, it can be revealed.
A dataset containing the details of nearly 19,000 people who applied to move to the UK following the Taliban takeover of the country was released in error by a British defence official in February 2022.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) learned of the breach in August 2023 when some details were anonymously posted on Facebook.
Nearly 9,000 Afghans have arrived in the UK or are en route via the previously secret scheme, which is estimated to have cost £850m.
The existence of this confidential Afghan Response Route, which was established in April 2024, was kept confidential by an injunction but can now be reported following a High Court ruling on Tuesday.
The MoD declined to say how many have been arrested or killed as a result of the data breach.
Defence secretary John Healey is expected to confirm further details in the House of Commons later on Tuesday.
The unauthorised data breach was committed by an unnamed individual at the MoD and included the names of large numbers of Afghans who were potentially at risk.
As US troops completed their withdrawal in August 2021, the UK government had set up Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme, which was designed to rapidly process applications by people who feared reprisals from the Taliban and move them to the UK.
But thousands of those who applied for that scheme had their sensitive personal data leaked in the breach.
Arap has already been heavily criticised in the years since it was launched, with a 2022 inquiry by the Foreign Affairs Committee finding it was a “disaster” and a “betrayal”.
A superinjunction had prevented the leak being revealed but it was lifted today by a judge at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Reading a summary of his judgment in court, Mr Justice Chamberlain said the the gagging order had “given rise to serious free speech concerns”.
He continued: “The superinjunction had the effect of completely shutting down the ordinary mechanisms of accountability which operate in a democracy.
“This led to what I describe as a ‘scrutiny vacuum’.”
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