U.K. Secretly Resettled 4,500 Afghans in Britain After Huge Data Exposure

The British Defense Ministry accidentally exposed information about more than 18,000 Afghans who worked with it before the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, then set up a secret program to resettle thousands believed to be at risk of retribution, the government acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday.

The extraordinary admission relates to a lapse in security in 2022 that had been kept secret from the public and from most lawmakers after the previous government, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, won a “super injunction” from the courts, meaning journalists could not report on the error.

Super injunctions are stringent legal mechanisms in Britain that prevent news organizations from publishing a story on a topic or even from referring to the fact that a court order has been granted. They have been the subject of intense criticism by journalists and by organizations that advocate press freedom.

In a statement to Parliament on Tuesday, the defense secretary, John Healey, said that the personal data of thousands of Afghans was accidentally disclosed in an email that was sent outside official channels in 2022. But the scale of the breach was only discovered in August 2023 when details of nine individuals were mentioned on social media.

As a result, the government, then controlled by the Conservatives, created a secret resettlement plan, called the Afghan Response Route, which has so far seen 4,500 Afghans arrive in Britain at a cost of about $537 million. A further 600 people and their immediate families are still to arrive.

Mr. Healey said that he was ending the relocation program and publishing a report about the matter. The report concluded that there was little evidence that the Taliban were intent on a campaign of retribution or that the exposed spreadsheet would prompt them to act against Afghans who had worked with the British.