Thousands of people are being relocated to the UK as part of a secret £850 million scheme set up after a personal data leak of Afghans who supported British forces, it can now be reported.
A dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) was released "in error" in February 2022 by a British defence official.
The breach resulted in the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme - the Afghanistan Response Route - in April 2024.
The scheme is understood to have cost around £400 million so far, with a projected cost once completed of around £850 million.
Millions more is expected to be paid in legal costs and compensation.
The British Ministry of Defence only became aware of the breach over a year after the release, when excerpts of the dataset were anonymously posted onto a Facebook group in August 2023.
