🔗 Share this article

An informant has disclosed the Afghan leak inquiry that British authorities failed to secure classified equipment allowing the Taliban to track down local individuals that had served with western forces.

Information Leak Puts Thousands in Danger

Person A, called Person A, stated that people concerned by the data leak were told to change residences and alter their mobile numbers to avoid detection from the ruling authorities.

Members of Parliament are investigating the UK government's response of a catastrophic disclosure of personal details concerning almost nineteen thousand individuals who had asked to come to Britain to flee militant rule.

Data Disclosure Occurred

An electronic document including private information, comprising names, phone numbers and occasionally household data, was mistakenly released by a worker employed at UK special forces headquarters in early 2022.

The leak came to light months later, when the names of nine people who had requested to relocate to the UK appeared on online platforms.

Militant Technology

“There seems to be this misconception that Afghan rulers do not have comparable resources that allied forces use,” she told MPs.

All equipment was abandoned in Afghanistan; they have it. Once they acquire your phone number, they can trace you down to within metres. That is what specialized teams achieved.”

When questioned about whether the Taliban had access to necessary encryption, Person A stated: “They've got everything.”

Impact of the Data Breach

Initial findings submitted to the investigation suggested that at least 49 kin and associates of people concerned by the leak had been murdered.

A legal restriction regarding the incident was enacted in August 2023 and blocked relevant facts about it from public disclosure until July 2025.

Security Recommendations

Given injunction limitations, the source and the aid group associated with informed Afghan families they were supporting that they had “concerns that certain devices had been intercepted”.

“We recommended that they moved when possible and changed their phone numbers. That constituted the primary information that, should militant forces acquired this information, would cause their location being found,” the source testified.

Contested Findings

Person A argued that internal investigation conducted by a retired civil servant had been mistaken to determine that the obtaining of the dataset by the regime was “minimally impact current risk levels”.

“The crucial point is that these Afghans are in hiding from the Taliban; they remain concealed. All concerns relate to former occupations.”

Person A described horrific treatment endured by concerned people, including electrocution, interrogation techniques, and severe beatings.

“There are cases of four-year-old children who have had limbs fractured to try to get households to say where someone is,” Person A stated.