Secret scheme of Afghan relocation configured after greater data violation

The previous government established a secret Afghan relocation scheme after the personal data of thousands of people were inadvertently filtered, it can be revealed.

The details of almost 19,000 people who had requested to move to the United Kingdom after the country’s Taliban acquisition was released by a British defense official in February 2022.

The Ministry of Defense (MOD) learned of the violation in August 2023 and created a new resettlement scheme nine months later. He has seen 4,500 Afghas reach the United Kingdom, with another 600 people and their immediate families yet to arrive.

However, the existence of the escape and the scheme remained secret after the government obtained a superinjunction.

The details of the main data violation, the response and the number of Afghans granted the right to live in the United Kingdom, as a result, they were only made public on Tuesday after a judge of the Superior Court ruled that the order of nausea should be lifted.

The escape contained the names, contact data and family information of people potentially at risk of damage by the Taliban.

The government also revealed on Tuesday:

• The secret scheme, officially called Afghan relocation route, has cost £ 400 million so far, and is expected to cost more than 400 million to £ 450m
• The scheme is closing, but relocation offers already made will be offered
• The violation was committed by an unidentified official in the mod
• People whose details leaked were only informed on Tuesday

Speaking in the House of Commons, the Secretary of Defense, John Healey, offered a “sincere apology” to those whose details had been included in the escape.

He said it was as a result that a spreadsheet was sent by email “outside authorized government systems”, which described as a “serious departmental error”, although the Metropolitan Police has already decided that a police investigation was not necessary.

Healey said the escape was “one of the many data losses” related to the evacuation of Afghanistan during that period.

The MOD has refused to say how many people may have been arrested or killed as a result of data violation, but Healey told the MPS an independent review that he had found that it was “very unlikely” that an individual had been attacked only for that.

He said that the review had also considered that the secret scheme was an “extremely significant intervention” given the “potentially limited” risk raised by the escape.

Healey said that those who have been relocated in the United Kingdom have already been counted in immigration figures.

The data involved the names of the people who had requested the scheme of the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (ARAP). When US troops completed their withdrawal in August 2021, the United Kingdom government established ARAP to quickly process the requests of people who feared reprisals from the Taliban and transferred them to the United Kingdom.

ARAP has already been very criticized in the years since it was launched, with a 2022 investigation by the Foreign Affairs Committee finding that it was a “disaster” and a “betrayal.”

A superinjunction had prevented the filtration from being revealed, but a judge raised it today in the royal courts of justice.

Healey told the house that he had even prevented him from talking about breach due to the “unprecedented” court order, after being informed while he was still in the Secretary of Defense of the Shadow.

When reading a summary of his sentence in the Court, Mr. Justice Chamberlain said that the order of nausea “had resulted in serious concerns of freedom of expression.”

He continued: “Superinjunction had the effect of completely closing the ordinary responsibility mechanisms that operate in a democracy.

“This led to what I describe as a ’empty of scrutiny’.”