Whistleblower tells Afghan leak inquiry those affected were told to move and change phone numbers to protect themselves
The UK left behind sensitive technology allowing the Taliban to track down Afghans who worked with western forces, a whistleblower has told the Afghan leak inquiry.
The woman, known as Person A, said Afghans affected by the data leak were told to move homes and change their phone numbers to protect themselves from the Taliban because it had the resources to track them down.
MPs are looking into the Conservative government’s handling of a catastrophic leak of the personal details of almost 19,000 Afghans who had asked to come to the UK to flee the Taliban.
A spreadsheet containing their personal data, including names, contact details and in some cases family information, was accidentally leaked by an official working at UK special forces headquarters in February 2022.
The leak came to light only in August 2023, when the names of nine people who had applied to move to the UK appeared on Facebook. Person A, an independent volunteer caseworker who was working with targeted Afghans, was alerted to this and notified the Ministry of Defence.
“There seems to be this misconception that the Taliban do not have the same sort of facilities that we have,” she told MPs on the defence select committee at a private hearing on 18 November, the transcript from which was published on Friday.
“We left it all behind in Afghanistan; they have it. If they have your phone...
[OSEN=Yeon Hwiseon, reporter] Comedian Park Na-rae plans to release an additional statement regarding allegations of power abuse surfaced from former managers and suspicions of receiving illegal m...