MOD DATA BREACH EXPOSED 18,500 AFGHANS FLEEING TALIBAN

A parliamentary inquiry has found that a Ministry of Defence data breach exposing personal details of thousands of Afghan applicants to UK relocation schemes was a "foreseeable systemic failure". The Commons Defence Committee published its report on Thursday, concluding that the MoD lacked expertise to run the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. The breach came to light in August 2023 but remained unreportable until July 2025 due to a super-injunction. A MoD spokesperson said the leak "should never have happened" and welcomed the opportunity to learn from the incident.

The breach occurred when an MoD staff member shared a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing data of over 18,500 applicants with a "trusted third party". The spreadsheet included every person who had applied to Arap by January 2022. The Defence Committee identified the breach as one of 19 data incidents reported between February 2022 and November 2023. According to the committee, the failure stemmed from "inappropriate tools, weak operating procedures, insufficient training, poor organisational continuity, and an inadequate culture of data protection and accountability". The MoD used secrecy as a "shield" against proper accountability, the inquiry found. UK Special Forces headquarters was identified as the source of the breach.

The leak has had documented consequences for those affected. One former Afghan interpreter who worked for the British Army reported that Taliban members raided his parents' home and tortured his father after the data breach, demanding money. His parents and three siblings were eventually resettled in the UK in May 2024. Arap was established in April 2021 to assist people who had worked with British armed forces and feared for their safety following the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.