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In September 2021, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) accidentally leaked a spreadsheet. The file contained personal information – including names, locations and contact details – of 100 British officials including special forces and MI6 personnel, as well as thousands of Afghan nationals. The Afghan names were applicants for relocation under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) having assisted the British Forces. The leak meant Taliban-linked accounts were then able to access the information and were reportedly using the data to trace survivors within hours, posing critical safety risks to UK intelligence staff and the Afghans who helped them.
The UK government called it an isolated mistake. It wasn’t.
Further breaches emerged in the following months. By 2022, as many as 19,000 Afghans and their family members had their information exposed in similar incidents. Those who became aware of the leak went into hiding and were still in deep cover fearing reprisals from the Taliban, who now governed the country. The public never knew about the breach, and a superinjunction prevented any reporting by the media. Even some of those affected were unaware that they had been put at significant risk by the incidents.
It sounds like a cybersecurity failure, but it goes much deeper than that.
A Policy Born in Secret
In the aftermath of the 2021 breach, the UK government secretly established a separate programme, projected to cost £850 million, dedicated to relocating the most at-risk individuals whose data had been exposed. This new, undisclosed initiative was designed to run outside existing frameworks such as ARAP and the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) which were created to evacuate vulnerable groups following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. The new programme was never formally announced, but had the target of specifically responding to the security and political fallout of the 2021 leak.
The secret programme was therefore not the only effort to relocate Afghan nationals, but it was totally invisible – at least until July 2025. Across the various schemes, the UK has already spent approximately £2 billion on resettlement efforts since 2021, including the public and hidden responses, which is projected to triple to £6 billion by the conclusion of the programmes.
So, Why Are We Hearing About This Now?
This month, Defence Secretary John Healey admitted the existence of the secret relocation programme for the first time, following a legal challenge and cross-party pressure. In total, around 900 Afghan nationals and 3,600 of their family members have been resettled in the UK under the £850 million initiative – in addition to the efforts and costs of ARAP and ACRS.
To clarify, ARAP was created to support Afghans who collaborated with the UK’s military efforts, and ACRS was aimed at broader vulnerable groups such as women and minority communities in the country, to get them to safety. Both of these were publicly acknowledged and subject to parliamentary oversight.
The additional secret scheme was not. There was no debate, and it was never announced to Parliament. It existed exclusively outside the public eye.
While the intent may have been to protect people who helped the UK, the secrecy has been deemed problematic by many, who say it was only kept under wraps to cover up the governmental errors that led to the scheme’s creation – not to keep identities safe. Not everyone whose data was exposed could be saved, and the breach itself was never scrutinised. The UK’s response was done quietly and expensively without any democratic oversight, and its recent emergence into the public eye raises questions about what governments do when they fail: do they just disappear the problem?
How Did It Even Happen?
A MoD official copied the wrong group of recipient addresses into an email update about relocation efforts. And that’s how it all began. The spreadsheet that was attached included identities and locations of local staff and Afghan interpreters – some of whom had been guaranteed safe passage only days before the breach occurred.
Dozens of individuals had to go into deeper hiding. Had to get rid of their phones. Some people were forced to change locations entirely. It seems the MoD issued an apology and attempted to reassign the staff involved – but that’s all. Further investigation revealed more of the same mistakes with spreadsheets, emails and exposure leading to further issues. This all points to a systemic issue, rather than a one-off accident. And it’s costing nearly £1 billion to fix it.
In Numbers: What the Court Docs Revealed
- As many as 100,000 people (including family members) possibly affected by the leak, as of September 2023
- 20,000 people eligible for relocation under the new scheme, leaving 80,000 at-risk people stranded, as of May 2024
- Under the secret scheme, 900 people are already in the UK as well as 3,600 family members, with 600 additional offers made, as of July 2025
- Across the various schemes, a total of 36,000 Afghans have moved to the UK since the withdrawal of international troops in 2021
- £400 million spent so far on the secret scheme, with a further £450 million anticipated
- In total, the eventual cost of all efforts to relocate Afghans since 2021 will be over £5.5 billion
A Silent Response
Instead of discussing the scale of the breach, the government chose to impose strict legal barriers on reporting. Tracing outcomes, naming affected individuals or even confirming the number of people involved were all out of bounds for journalists. It took nearly four years for public to be informed of the mistake and the secret scheme it led to.
The reason for its emergence now is because, during a court challenge related to Afghan asylum cases, investigative journalists obtained some partially redacted internal documents. Under political pressure, Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed the programme’s existence, and once the legal gag orders were lifted, news outlets began piecing together the intent and scale of the operation.
It turns out that more than 4,500 people were resettled. Some were granted asylum via specially arranged flights, while others arrived through diplomatic backchannels or partner states. The Home Office used broader migration budgets to fund the operation, but the true burden – speaking financially, politically, or logistically – is yet to be disclosed.
All in all, this is a case of the state making a mistake and secretly spending a nine-figure sum to cover it up.
Secret Failure of a Fragile System
What the breach really exposed was the fragility of government systems – particularly in sensitive operations. A simple mistake of adding the wrong recipients or attaching the wrong spreadsheet can – and is this case, categorically did – end up costing hundreds of millions of pounds, and compromising the safety of thousands of people. Broken trust, hurried evacuations, and secret asylum plans followed.
It also doesn’t appear that there has been a major security overhaul after such a costly breach. Nobody was named for the mistake, no accountability was assigned, and many families affected by the error were never formally notified. It looks like the system that allowed sensitive data to circulate so easily remains intact.
Why It Matters
This is not exclusively about Afghanistan – it highlights how modern states handle failure, how fragile the infrastructure is, and the true cost of the errors they inevitably lead to.
Legal barriers continue to replace accountability. Internal sticking plasters replace structural reform. When something breaks – whether a contract, a promise, or a data system – governments are managing the fallouts in silence. And in this case, the Afghans who risked their lives to support British troops, were betrayed. Whether by a simple mistake or a systemic failure, they were left exposed.
How many other cases like this will we learn about in the future?
Final Thought
This wasn’t just a breach. It was a demonstration of how states who commit to protecting others end up protecting themselves. It begs the question whether this is the norm in parliament, and what else is being covered up that we don’t yet know.
A stupid email mistake. Thousands of lives at risk. £850 million to fix it. And we only really found out by accident.
Join the Conversation
Do you know of any other cases like this? What else is being covered up? We may always suspect it’s happening, but here’s a rare evidential case. Add your comments below.
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Categories: Breaking News, Did You Know?, UK News
be sure to check out and read carefully a petition by rupert lowe on the uk government and parliament petition page…mandatory collection and publication of certain child sexual offender data..it currently has 242,942, signatures it needs many more as for resharing it be aware that e mails cant be censored or suppressed fact..so the plan is this first be sure to sign it and then by using e mails only be sure to reshare it with all your like minded uk only e mail only contacts and be sure to ask each one of them to do exactly the same as im asking you to do in this message you are currently reading..an example of what i mean by like minded e mail contacts would be to reshare it with alan in manchester paul in nottingham martin in glasgow peter in cardiff and so on im sure by now you know exactly what it is that im asking of you be sure to reshare this information when you reshare the petition and be sure to tell each one of them that when theyresharev the vpetition they must only use e mails and tell them why it currently has 242,950, signatures
Never mind, the Government can just raise taxes again. Not that there will be many taxpayers left in the country soon. Those that are able will leave the UK because of the higher taxes. Therefore, the nett result will be a drop in the tax take because there will be less people paying tax, negating the extra tax receipts, the less than clever Chancellor was hoping to raise. In the end, the poorer people that couldn’t afford to leave the UK, are the ones that suffer, having to pay more tax than they can afford. Add to that, the number of people that have lost their jobs because of the anti growth policies of the economic genius in number 11 Downing Street. These newly unemployed people that are not only no longer paying tax, but will be needing benefits. This results in less money coming into the government coffers, and more going out.
There needs to be transparency and accountability. The public must know what their tax money is being spent on and if the politicians make grave mistakes, they must pay back the money or serve jail time.