UK's Secret Plan to Move Afghans to Safety Revealed After Data Leak

Britain established a covert program to relocate thousands of Afghans to the UK due to a soldier accidentally exposing the personal information of over 33,000 individuals, potentially endangering them from Taliban reprisals, as revealed in court documents on Tuesday.

A judge at London's High Court disclosed in a May 2024 ruling, made public recently, that approximately 20,000 individuals might need relocation to the UK, a move estimated to cost 'several billion pounds.'

Current UK Defense Minister John Healey mentioned that roughly 4,500 affected individuals 'are in Britain or en route... at a cost of around 400 million pounds.'

The government is now facing legal actions from those impacted by the breach, escalating the overall cost of the incident.

A review of the data breach, commissioned by the Ministry of Defence and summarized on Tuesday, indicated that over 16,000 affected individuals had been relocated to the UK by May this year.

The UK government was compelled to take action following the breach that exposed the identities of Afghans who had assisted British forces in Afghanistan before the chaotic withdrawal in 2021.

The specifics emerged after the lifting of a legal ruling, known as a superinjunction, on Tuesday. The injunction was granted in 2023 after the MoD argued that a public disclosure of the breach could imperil individuals to extrajudicial killings or severe violence by the Taliban.

The dataset contained personal details of nearly 19,000 Afghans and their families who had sought relocation to Britain. It was mistakenly released in early 2022, with the breach only being noticed by the MoD in August 2023 when a portion of the dataset was posted on Facebook.

The former Conservative government secured the injunction the subsequent month.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer's center-left administration, elected in July, initiated an investigation into the injunction, the breach, and the relocation program. The review concluded that while Afghanistan remains perilous, there was scant evidence of Taliban intent to engage in a retribution campaign.

According to the source: CNN.