A New Leak of Afghan Data Revealed in Ukraine, Transferred to Safety

• The leak involved 3,700 Afghans, transferred to the United Kingdom.
• The government spent £2.4 million on legal expenditures to support the confidentiality of the leak.
• The supertanker was chartered in July 2024, allowing Afghans to be informed about the leak.

The new leak of personal data of Afghans, transferred to the United Kingdom, occurred due to an incident at the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The leak, which affected 3,700 individuals, was facilitated by the company Inflite The Jet Centre, which provides domestic services for airliners from London Stansted Airport.

This incident is a continuation of a serious data leak that occurred in the summer of 2022, when more than 19,000 Afghan individuals applied for relocation to Britain due to threats from the Taliban. This situation led to the creation of a dedicated evacuation program, which allowed the transfer of 16,000 Afghans to the United Kingdom.

In a statement sent by the team dealing with relocation issues, it is mentioned that the data may include passport information, as well as reference numbers under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap). Government agencies confirmed that there is currently no evidence that the data was published on the Internet.

The government stated that it is implementing all necessary measures to ensure the security of the data. Inflite The Jet Centre confirmed that the incident was limited to electronic mail and reported this to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). In connection with the data leak, the government spent £2.4 million sterling on legal expenditures to support the confidentiality of the supertanker, which prohibits the disclosure of information about the leak for two years.

The court instance chartered the supertanker in July 2024, partly due to the fact that the confidentiality allowed Afghans to live with measures for their own protection, as 18,700 individuals could not be informed about the fact that their data had been compromised.

Tags: Europe/Technology