UK secretly relocated thousands of Afghans after 2022 data breach, reveals Defence Minister Healey

Thousands of Afghans who worked with the UK government and their families were secretly relocated to Britain after a major data breach in 2022 exposed their identities and put their lives at risk, Defence Minister John Healey revealed in Parliament on Tuesday.

According to an AFP report, the previously undisclosed evacuation programme was made public after the UK High Court lifted a strict reporting ban, known as a super-injunction, which had prevented any mention of the events.

Healey told MPs that in February 2022, a UK government official accidentally leaked a spreadsheet containing the personal details of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had applied for relocation to the UK.

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The breach too place just six months after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, heightening fears for the safety of those who had supported British operations in Afghanistan, added the report.

“This was a serious departmental error,” AFP quoted Healey as saying, adding “lives may have been at stake”.

Healey revealed that the previous Conservative government launched a covert programme to evacuate Afghans deemed “at the highest risk of reprisals by the Taliban” following the fall of Kabul in 2021.

Under the initiative, known as the Afghan Response Route, approximately 900 Afghans and 3,600 of their family members have so far been relocated to the UK or are currently in transit.

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The operation has cost the government an estimated £400 million, Healey said.

They are part of a broader group of around 36,000 Afghans accepted by the UK under various resettlement schemes since the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

Healey, who was Labour’s opposition defence spokesman at the time, said he was first briefed on the secret programme in December 2023.

However, the Conservative government sought and secured a rare “super-injunction” that prevented any mention of the operation in Parliament or the press.

“Ministers decided not to tell parliamentarians at an earlier stage about the data incident, as the widespread publicity would increase the risk of the Taliban obtaining the dataset,” he was quoted as saying.

After taking office as defence minister in the new Labour government, Healey ordered a review of the secret evacuation scheme.

The review found “very little intent by the Taliban to conduct a campaign of retribution,” he told Parliament.

As a result, the Afghan Response Route has now been closed. Healey also issued an apology for the 2022 data breach that triggered the operation, stating it “should never have happened.”

With inputs from agencies