Judge to ‘scrutinise’ bid to hold Afghan data breach hearing behind closed doors

The High Court judge who lifted an unprecedented super-injunction has told UK Government lawyers he will be “scrutinising very carefully” any bid to hold a hearing behind closed doors as the case returned to court.

On Tuesday, the order was lifted, allowing the media to report that a massive data breach had occurred in February 2022, resulting in thousands of Afghans being relocated to the UK in secret due to the risk of Taliban reprisals.

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” by a defence official, with the Ministry of Defence only becoming aware of the breach in August 2023.

Details on the dataset include the names and contact details of the Arap applicants and the names of their family members.

Sensitive

The case returned to a hearing at the High Court on Thursday, as multiple media organisations made a bid to modify a second order that remains in place.

The hearing in London sat in a closed session on Thursday morning, where journalists and their lawyers were excluded.

While private hearings exclude the public and press but allow the parties in the case to remain, closed hearings require specific lawyers who can deal with sensitive issues, including national security.

During the public part of the hearing, Mr Justice Chamberlain said that while he needed to give lawyers for the Ministry of Defence an “opportunity” to argue why a closed hearing was needed, “I will be scrutinising very carefully any justification for holding any part of this hearing in private, let alone in closed”.

The judge later said he would not be “kicking the ball down the road”.

Risk

He added: “The super-injunction has now been lifted and if there are other matters that are capable of being reported in public, that needs to be able to happen straight away.”

Arap was responsible for relocating Afghan nationals who had worked for or with the UK Government and were therefore at risk of reprisals once the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021.

Between 80,000 and 100,000 people, including the estimated number of family members of the Arap applicants, were affected by the breach and could be at risk of harassment, torture or death if the Taliban obtained their data, judges said in June 2024.

The breach resulted in the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme – the Afghanistan Response Route – by the previous government 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.

Tariffs

Millions more are expected to be paid in legal costs and compensation.

Around 4,500 people, made up of 900 Arap applicants and approximately 3,600 family members, have been brought to the UK or are in transit so far through the Afghanistan Response Route.

A further estimated 600 people and their relatives are expected to be relocated before the scheme closes, with a total of around 6,900 people expected to be relocated by the end of the scheme.

Projected costs of the scheme may include relocation costs, transitional accommodation, legal costs and local authority tariffs.