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• Fri Jul 4 2025

Payout offered to Afghans hit by UK data breaches

15 hours ago Share Save Kate Whannel Political reporter Share Save

Getty Images British soldiers conducting counter-Taliban operations 2007 in Southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Afghan nationals whose personal information was mistakenly exposed by the Ministry of Defence in 2021 will be offered up to ?4,000 each in compensation, the government has said. The data breaches affected 277 people, some of whom had worked for the UK government and were in hiding from insurgent Taliban forces at the time. Defence Minister Luke Pollard said he could not "undo past mistakes" but promised that the payments would be made "as quickly as reasonably practical". The government expects the total cost to be around ?1.6m and comes on top of the ?350,000 it had to pay after receiving a fine from the data watchdog.

The biggest breach took place in September 2021 when the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) team was working to evacuate people from Afghanistan following the chaotic withdrawal of western troops. A mass email was sent to those, such as interpreters, whose work with the UK government meant they could be targeted by the Taliban and therefore made them eligible to be relocated. Their email addresses were added to the 'To' field instead of the 'blind carbon copy' (Bcc) section, meaning their names could be seen by all recipients. The Ministry of Defence later launched an internal investigation that revealed two similar breaches on 7 September and 13 September of that year. Sean Humber from the Leigh Day law firm which is representing some of those affected said the government's statement about compensation contained "little information". "As far as we are aware, there has been no consultation with those affected or their legal advisors about the scheme - it is not clear the criteria that will be used to identify the proposed payment amount. "In our client's case, he and his family spent five very scared months in hiding in Kabul concerned that the Taliban were now aware that he had assisted UK forces and were looking for him. "He feared for his life and was aware of the Taliban beating and killing others that had assisted UK forces. "We will need to review critically with our client whether any sum that is now being offered adequately compensates him for distress that he has undoubtedly suffered."