Over 100 British spies and commandos exposed in data leak

The breach and the government’s response to it are projected to cost up to £7 billion

The identities of more than 100 MI6 spies, British special forces operatives and other military personnel were compromised in a massive data breach which was subsequently covered up, multiple media organizations reported on Thursday.

The fallout from the massive British Defense Ministry Afghanistan leak was kept from public view under a court-imposed superinjunction for years. That gag order was lifted Tuesday by a High Court judge, allowing the media to report on the incident.

Days later, several news outlets revealed that UK military and intelligence personnel were among those exposed.

The names of more than 100 British officials were in the leaked data, including members of MI6 and special forces, the BBC admitted on Thursday.

The UK Defense Ministry had originally leaked a spreadsheet via a mistakenly sent email in February 2022 containing then personal details of nearly 19,000 Afghans. These individuals had worked with the British during the decades-long US-led war in Afghanistan and had applied for resettlement in the UK, fearing retaliation from the Taliban.

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The data breach resurfaced the following year, when someone in Afghanistan posted part of it on Facebook and threatened to publish the rest. This prompted London to scramble to put a gag order on the matter and create a secret relocation scheme for those affected. The individuals were not informed of the leak “despite the risk to their safety,” according to the BBC.

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The total costs of relocating thousands of Afghans and their families to the UK and housing them, “could be assumed to run into several billion pounds,” according to Judge Justice Chamberlain, who lifted the superinjunction. A total of 4,500 people have been moved from Afghanistan to the UK under the scheme to date, the BBC reported on Thursday.

UK Defense Secretary John Healey has issued a “sincere apology” on behalf of London to those whose information was compromised in the data breach. He said he was “unable to say for sure” whether anyone had been killed as a result of the leak, according to the BBC.