Chaos and fear as Afghans exposed in huge data breach left in limbo by UK

Independent

19 hours ago

When the email from the Ministry of Defence dropped into his inbox, Qargha's heart leapt. After an agonising four-year wait, he hoped that this would finally be confirmation that he could escape the threat of the Taliban and be brought to safety in the UK.
Instead, it was news that the government had exposed his personal information – and kept him in the dark about it for nearly two years.
Already in fear for his life, he will now take extra precautions even when going for a walk or shopping.
He is one of around 18,700 Afghans whose names and contact details were exposed in the catastrophic data leak, which happened when an MoD official emailed a secret database to trusted contacts in February 2022.
The blunder, which has resulted in some 16,000 Afghans affected by the breach being relocated to Britain as part of a covert operation, was discovered after someone posted parts of the database online in August 2023.
News of the breach prompted the government to use an unprecedented superinjunction to keep the breach a secret in an attempt to block further spread of the information, meaning that even those affected could not be told.
Ministers had argued that 100,000 people's lives were at risk of Taliban reprisals if news of the data breach got out, but a government-commissioned review later concluded that being identified on the dataset was unlikely to constitute sole grounds for targeting.
Just before the gagging order was finally lifted on Tuesday, the MoD scrambled to email tens of thousands of Afghans, warning them their data was compromised.
Desperate for news that MoD caseworkers had finally made a decision on his case, Qargha, a former member of the Afghan security forces who is still in Afghanistan, thought the email would finally confirm his eligibility approval.
But he was shocked when he discovered the truth.
He told The Independent: ' I am very concerned about the leak of my personal information and I understood more about it from Afghan International TV as well. They said this leak will put many lives at risk.
'My day-to-day life will be harder now. I am living in a safe house and I know that today or tomorrow, if I need to go to the hospital or seek help for anything, I will have to be more cautious now. I am putting restrictions on myself – being more cautious about going shopping, going for a walk, going to the park or going for a haircut'.
The former soldier applied for sanctuary in the UK in 2021, but he was rejected along with many members of former Afghan specialist units in the summer of 2023. During that time, one UK special forces liaison officer oversaw the blanket rejection of 1,585 such applications.
Qargha is waiting on a review of that decision, and the years of limbo are taking their toll as his agonising wait continues.
'My old home has already been raided twice. It is impacting me mentally, having to wait for so long. Everyone knows us and the work we did against the Taliban before the takeover, so my life is hard, stress level is up, everything is up,' he said.
One former member of the Afghan special forces unit, ATF444, who served alongside the British yet left behind after the withdrawal, is also still waiting for a review of his application for help.
Akthar said that after he received the two alert emails from the MoD, he had 'a lot of questions'. 'I don't understand, this is not a third-world country. This is the UK, where access to technology is high. How have they managed to leak this information?', he told The Independent.
'We are already at risk and they have put us at more risk. There are lots of questions but what can we do about it - nothing.
'Whatever caution we were taking before, we should triple that caution. At this moment, the fear is like hell.
'My moving around has become restricted a lot. Before, if I was taking 50 per cent precaution for my safety, I need to make sure I'm doing it 100 per cent,' he added. Last week, Taliban members began doing door-to-door raids of the district he was in, so he jumped in a car with a friend and drove for 12 hours to a different province, he said.
He also needs to try to work to get money to support members of his family. 'It's making me desperate,' he said, adding: 'My family has not done anything to anybody and they don't deserve to die'.
Another former member of the Afghan security forces said his 'stress changed to depression' on receiving the bright red warning message, alerting him that his information had been breached. 'My stress level is very high, all I can do is wait for my application to be processed,' he said.
The Independent revealed on Wednesday that hundreds of Afghan special forces soldiers had had their details leaked in the MoD breach.
Some 18,500 people affected by the leak have been brought to the UK or are on their way, while 5,400 have received approval letters but still need to be evacuated.
Ministers have said that, while the MoD's resettlement scheme (Arap) has been closed to new applicants, existing cases will still be processed. But no time frame for the evacuations has been given, leaving those affected in limbo.
An MoD spokesperson said: 'We will not comment on individual cases.
'This Government is fully committed to delivering on the pledge made by Parliament to those in Afghanistan who are eligible to relocate and resettle.
'We aim to see through our commitment to those eligible under the ARP to its completion by the end of the parliament. Eligible Afghans and their families will continue to arrive in the UK for the foreseeable future.'