The British Defense Ministry accidentally exposed information about more than 18,000 Afghans who worked with it before the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, then set up a secret program to resettle thousands believed to be at risk of retribution, the government acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday.
The extraordinary admission relates to a lapse in security in 2022 that had been kept secret from the public and from most lawmakers after the previous government, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, won a “super injunction” from the courts, meaning journalists could not report on the error.
Super injunctions are stringent legal mechanisms in Britain that prevent news organizations from publishing a story on a topic or even from referring to the fact that a court order has been granted. They have been the subject of intense criticism by journalists and by organizations that advocate press freedom.
In a statement to Parliament on Tuesday, the defense secretary, John Healey, said that the personal data of thousands of Afghans was accidentally disclosed in an email that was sent outside official channels in 2022. But the scale of the breach was only discovered in August 2023 when details of nine individuals were mentioned on social media.
As a result, the government, then controlled by the Conservatives, created a secret resettlement plan, called the Afghan Response Route, which has so far seen 4,500 Afghans arrive in Britain at a cost of about $537 million. A further 600 people and their immediate families are still to arrive.
Mr. Healey said that he was ending the relocation program and publishing a report about the matter. The report concluded that there was little evidence that the Taliban were intent on a campaign of retribution or that the exposed spreadsheet would prompt them to act against Afghans who had worked with the British.
“I’m closing this resettlement route, I am disclosing the data loss, and I am confirming that the court order was lifted at noon, today” Mr. Healey said. He described the injunction, to which he was also subjected, as unprecedented.
Mr. Healey added that he had been “deeply concerned about the lack of transparency to the public and to Parliament.”
Mr. Healey said that an unnamed defense official had emailed a file about an existing resettlement scheme, known as the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy, intended for those who had worked for, or with, British forces in Afghanistan. The email was sent outside authorized systems, and the file contained the names and information of those applying mainly to that program, as well as the personal details of some family members.
“This official mistakenly believed that they were sending the details of 150 applicants. However, the spreadsheet in fact contained personal information associated to 18,714 Afghans,” Mr. Healey said, calling it a serious departmental error.
The disclosure comes at a time when immigration is a sensitive issue in British politics, after a surge in legal migration under the previous government and the arrival of thousands of asylum seekers from France on small boats.
Mr. Healey said that, while the existence of the secret relocation scheme had been protected, the numbers of those admitted to Britain through it had been disclosed in official immigration statistics.
He also offered a “sincere apology” to those whose details had been released by the error.
Stephen Castle is a London correspondent of The Times, writing widely about Britain, its politics and the country’s relationship with Europe.
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