I’m living in fear of repercussions after the Afghan data breach

The news stopped me in my tracks.

‘Close to 7,000 Afghan nationals are being relocated to the UK because of a massive data breach by the British military,’ the presenter said.

They went on to explain that an email was leaked in 2022 with a spreadsheet containing the personal information of almost 19,000 Afghans who applied to come to the UK.

I was shocked. As an Afghan national who worked with the British Government before fleeing to the UK in August 2021, this video was the first I was hearing of any leak – three years after it happened.

My personal details – along with the names of my family still in Afghanistan – might be included in this data breach, which could put everyone I know in grave danger. And no one in the Government thought to warn me.

I immediately felt sick to my stomach. 

I first started working with a British organisation in 2019, managing Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) contracts. Our work made us targets for the Taliban, to the point where we regularly had to wear bulletproof vests, hard hats, and hide in safe rooms at the office.

My job was so high risk that I couldn’t even tell my family, or even my partner. Instead, they thought I worked in construction.

In early 2021, news started spreading that western forces were going to pull out of Afghanistan – a move that would see the Taliban take over the country and put me in certain danger.

Thankfully, by April, the UK Government introduced the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP), which offered an escape plan for people who had worked with the British Government to flee to the UK.

I applied shortly after and was grateful to find out within a couple of months that both my wife and I had been approved.

Telling my family – especially my widowed mother – that I was leaving the country was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Heartbreakingly, I couldn’t tell them the real reason for their own safety, so they think I moved for a scholarship.

My own wife only found out about my real job a day before we were due to escape the country – I sat her down and finally explained everything. She understood why I couldn’t tell her the truth and was sad to be leaving our home, but thankful for a route out of an increasingly politically unstable situation.

It was early August – around a week before Kabul fell to the Taliban – that we finally flew out. Getting on that chartered plane with just two suitcases full of clothes, I felt numb.

It was all happening so fast – even the 16-hour flight to Birmingham was a total blur. The gravity of the situation didn’t properly hit me until later that month when I saw videos of people desperately clinging to planes to escape and falling off to their deaths.

It was all just so traumatising.

My wife and I settled in the UK – and have since felt very blessed to have welcomed children – but we’ve regularly kept in contact with our families, especially in those early days. They’re safe, but they still don’t know the real reason why we left almost four years ago.

If the Taliban found out what I used to do, my family could be hunted down and killed.

That’s why this recent leak is such a betrayal – and the Government’s silence on it is so galling. I understand there was a superinjunction to stop the leak from being talked about, but they could’ve at least informed all the people affected.

Defence Secretary John Healey told the Commons this week that it was a ‘serious departmental error’ and that he felt ‘deeply concerned about the lack of transparency to parliament and the public’.

But where is the transparency in not personally alerting Afghans in the UK? If 18,714 Afghans had their personal information leaked, each and every one of us should be notified.

I’d argue that even the people who weren’t affected by the leak should still be notified, if they were part of the ARAP scheme like me.

Thankfully, around 4,500 Afghans have since been settled in the UK as a direct result of being in danger from the leak, with a further 600 invitations being offered. This is through an until-recently secret emergency scheme called the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR).

But both this scheme and the ARAP one that I was on are now closed.

Terrifyingly, a Taliban spokesperson claimed on Wednesday to the Telegraph that they have possession of the list and have been ‘calling and visiting their family members to track them down’. If true, this is devastating.

The danger for this leak is real for people still living in Afghanistan – and for the families of people still living there, like mine. 

As for me, I can’t warn my family that they may be at risk from this leak because naivety would be best for them if they were questioned. So I feel so helpless.

That’s why I believe that the Government has a responsibility to find safe routes for all the people they inadvertently put in danger. In an ideal world, they would provide safe passage to both mine and my wife’s families.

All this time, I’ve thought that being so secretive about why I left could potentially mean that I could go back to my home country one day if I needed to – like for a family member’s funeral.

But the mere existence of this list and my potentially being on it means that could never happen. And losing that hope is devastating.

As told to James Besanvalle

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.