The personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) was released “in error” in 2022
The former Conservative defence secretary, Sir Ben Wallace, said he makes “no apology” for applying for an injunction to block reporting about a data leak which revealed the details of Afghans who supported British forces.
Thousands of people are being relocated to the UK as part of a scheme set up after the data breach.
Writing in The Telegraph, Wallace said the decision to appeal for the injunction was “not a cover-up”.
He added that if the leak had been reported, it would have “put in peril those we needed to help out”.
A dataset that contained the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied to the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) was released “in error” in February 2022 by a defence official.
It is understood that the official emailed the data outside a secure government system whilst attempting to verify information.
They believed the dataset to only have 150 rows, but more than 33,000 rows of data were inadvertently sent.
The government did not comment to say whether the officials involved had faced disciplinary action or were still employed by the MoD.
The current Defence Secretary, John Healey, said the person involved in the leak is no longer “doing the same job”.
Defence Secretary: We should be ‘deeply cautious’ about secret superinjunctions in future
The Ministry of Defence only became aware of the breach after excerpts of the dataset were posted anonymously on a Facebook group in August 2023.
A superinjunction was then granted at the High Court in an attempt to prevent the Taliban from finding out about the leak.
Sir Ben said that when he was informed of the “error”, he was “determined that the first priority was to protect all those that might be at risk”.
“I make no apology for applying to the court for an injunction at the time. It was not, as some are childishly trying to claim, a cover-up,” he said.
“I took the view that if this leak was reported at the time, the existence of the list would put in peril those we needed to help out.
“Some may disagree but imagine if the Taliban had been alerted to the existence of this list. I would dread to think what would have happened.”
The injunction was in place for almost two years, covering both Labour and Conservative governments.
The data leak led to the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme in April 2024.
The Afghanistan Response Route is understood to have cost around £400 million, with a projected final cost of roughly £850 million.
Around 6,900 people are expected to be relocated by the end of the scheme.
Mr Healey offered a “sincere apology” on behalf of the Government in the Commons on Tuesday and said he had felt “deeply uncomfortable” not being able to speak about it in Parliament.
The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch also apologised on her party’s behalf.
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