Security committee launches inquiry into Afghan data leak

The Intelligence Monitoring Authority in Parliament has announced that it will launch an investigation into the main data breach, which led to the exposure of the identities of thousands of Afghans and British military officials.

Data leakage pushed a super function, which means that the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), which routinely reviews sensitive materials, has not been informed until last week.

President Lord Pimsh said all intelligence documents related to the case should be submitted immediately for review.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense (MD) said that the government strongly welcomed the committee to leak the data.

ISC is honored by the work of MI5, MI6 and government communications headquarters (GchQ).

In a statement on Monday, Lord Pimsh said that the cross group “will conduct an investigation into the role of the intelligence community and its activity regarding data loss” after considering defense assessments related to the case.

The counterpart has already expressed concern about the “serious constitutional issues” raised by dealing with the breach, which was not discovered for more than a year before requesting the matter of silence.

ISC argued that – under the 2013 Justice and Security Law – the classification of materials is not reasons that information can be withheld from the committee, given that its purpose is to check the work of the intelligence community in the United Kingdom.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said: “We are aware of the urgent need to understand how these important failures occurred and to ensure that there is appropriate accountability for the previous government’s treatment of this issue,” said a Ministry of Defense spokesman.

“The Ministry of Defense has been instructed by the Minister of Defense to provide its full support to the ISC and all parliamentary committees. If the current ministers and officials are asked to object and provide evidence, they will do.”

The leakage was conducted in February 2022 by a person working at the Special Forces headquarters in the United Kingdom in London, who inadvertently sent a spreadsheet containing more than 30,000 resettlement requests to an individual outside the government, believing that he was sending data on only 150 people.

The data breach was determined only in August 2023, when a man in Afghanistan put a publication on Facebook, specifying nine individuals and indicating that he could launch the rest, in a series of events that government sources said was “mainly blackmail.”

The Ministry of Defense applied for a silent order in September 2023, due to the risk of revenge against the Taliban against nearly 19,000 Afghans, who were revealed that they had worked with the British forces in Afghanistan.

The Supreme Court has been placed in a very appreciated place, which means that even the existence of the matter of silence cannot be reported The judge raised the order Last week.

The discovery of data breach forced the government to create a secret response path (ARR) to bring about 7,000 affected people to the United Kingdom at an expected final cost of about 850 million pounds.

A defense spokesman said that the government “will strongly defend” any legal procedure or a compensation offer, adding that it was “virtual claims.”

It has been reported that the Ministry of Defense will not provide proactive compensation to the affected people.