MoD warns lawyers it will ‘fight them hard' on Afghan leak compensation
At least two practices have vowed to take legal action against the Government on behalf of hundreds who claim they were affected by the most damaging data breach in British history.
The 2022 leak of details of 18,800 Afghans, along with about 6,000 of their family members, was revealed on Tuesday after a super-injunction was lifted by the High Court.
Hundreds of Afghans say the leak by a Royal Marine risked their lives. Compensation cases could cost taxpayers nearly £1bn, with two legal firms saying they are representing clients.
However, a spokesman for the MoD said: 'We will do everything possible to defend against any compensation claims.
'We have taken appropriate action in line with the level of risk these individuals faced. Any claims we do get, we will fight them hard.'
It is not clear what the MoD's defence would be, and the ministry would not elaborate on this.
The breach occurred in February 2022, when the Marine emailed a group of Afghans, accidentally including a spreadsheet naming nearly 25,000 Afghans applying for asylum on the basis they had worked with the British Army, as well as identifying their family members.
Law firms are approaching clients to sue the MoD, including Barings Law, based in Manchester, which is acting on behalf of at least 1,000 Afghans who claim they were affected.
It was reported the firm sent messages on WhatsApp groups urging Afghans to sign up to the legal case on the expectation they would be given large sums of money, without being able to explain the grounds without breaching the super-injunction.
It hopes to claim £50,000 from the MoD for each individual involved in the breach. If all 18,800 soldiers make a successful claim, the compensation bill could be as high as £940m.
That sum could grow if any of the Afghan soldiers' family members join the legal claim, taking it towards £1 billion in total.
Adnan Malik, head of data protection at Barings Law, said: 'This is an incredibly serious data breach, which the MoD has repeatedly tried to hide from the British public.
'It involved the loss of personal and identifying information about Afghan nationals who have helped British forces to defeat terrorism and support security and stability in the region.
'Through its careless handling of such sensitive information, the MoD has put multiple lives at risk, damaged its own reputation, and put the success of future operations in jeopardy by eroding trust in its data security measures.'
Second firm involved
The Telegraph can reveal that a second law firm, Leigh Day, is acting for potential clients.
A spokesman said the firm had been contacted by clients who had been told by the MoD that their details were part of the data breach. Others approached Leigh Day via its website after reading about its work.
Sean Humber, a data breach lawyer, said: 'We are acting for clients affected by the data breach who remain in Afghanistan and others who are now in the UK.
'The priority must be ensuring the safety of those affected by the data breach who remain in Afghanistan.
'The level of compensation is likely to be in the thousands, although the exact amount is likely to vary and will probably be higher for those remaining in Afghanistan compared to those that have successfully relocated to the UK.'
The firm said it could not say how many clients it had or how much compensation they were seeking.
The leak came to light in 2023, when an anonymous Facebook user posted extracts of the data on the social media site.
MoD officials contacted Meta, the company that owns Facebook, and the posts were deleted within three days.
However, the Government decided it had no choice but to offer asylum to the Afghans affected because the leak had left them at risk of reprisals from the Taliban.
The breach has only just come to public attention after an unprecedented super-injunction was lifted by the High Court.
The MoD's combative approach to compensation is a marked contrast to the Tory government's stance over a previous 'BCC incident' in 2021.
Then, the MoD mistakenly exposed the personal information of 277 Afghan nationals, some of whom had worked for the British government and were in hiding from the Taliban.
A mass email was sent to those, such as interpreters, who could be targeted by the Taliban and were eligible to be relocated. Their emails were added to the 'To' field instead of the 'blind carbon copy' section, meaning their names could be seen by all recipients.
The Tory government agreed to set up a taxpayer-funded compensation scheme, which Labour agreed to honour with an offer of up to £4,000 for each of the victims.
But they will not do the same for the latest data breach, which is on a much larger scale and could have put 100,000 lives at risk.
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