Ahmad Fahim warned that cover is ‘part of staying alive’ for many Afghans and Brits in the data breach.

I could be in grave danger.

The personal details of British spies and special forces personnel were included in the Afghan data breach that led to an unprecedented superinjunction, it has emerged.

It was previously reported that a list accidentally sent in an insecure email by a military official contained information relating to almost 19,000 Afghans who helped to support British forces in the fight against the Taliban.

Following the lifting of the two-year superinjunction on Tuesday, it has been revealed that the document also held data relating to more than 100 British people.

They included MI6 spies as well as special forces and SAS personnel.

The data breach, which happened in February 2022, was only discovered by the government when an extract was posted on Facebook 18 months later.

Then-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace asked a judge for an injunction to prevent the information contained in the dataset being published.

However, the judge instead placed the case under a superinjunction, preventing any details about the breach or the injunction itself from being published.

Meanwhile, the largest covert evacuation in peacetime history was launched to get Afghans out of the country, out of concern their lives could be at risk from the Taliban.

The programme, named the Afghanistan Response Route, has cost around £400 million so far and could cost around £850 million by the time it ends.

Defence Secretary John Healey told MPs on Tuesday: ‘This serious data incident should never have happened.

‘It may have occurred three years ago under the previous government, but to all those whose information was compromised, I offer a sincere apology today on behalf of the British Government, and I trust the shadow defence secretary, as a former defence minister, will join me.’

Iraq veteran and Lib Dem defence spokesperson Helen Maguire MP called for the government to ‘immediately launch an inquiry into this devastating scandal’.

She said: ‘The more we find out about this data leak, the worse it gets.

‘Highly confidential details, including our own special forces’ personal identities – should never have been somewhere where they could accidentally be shared, and potentially fall into the hands of the Taliban.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

On Tuesday, it was revealed for the first time that the British Government had used a superinjunction to keep a secret from the public.

The term ‘superinjunction’ may be familiar to people who paid attention to the news in the 2010s, thanks to their deployment by several high-profile figures who wanted to stop people reading about their private lives.

It is a court order a step above an injunction, which is used to stop details of the case being published in public.

In a case with a superinjunction, not even the existence of the injunction can be made public.

These orders are powerful enough when used by an individual. The use of one by the government to keep the entire UK in the dark is unprecedented.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money was spent without the public’s knowledge, to bring a large number of individuals to the UK from Afghanistan without anyone being allowed to learn why.

It all stemmed from an accidental data breach in February 2022, which exposed the personal details of more than 18,000 Afghans who had assisted British forces in their fight against the Taliban.

When the government learned about this breach 18 months after it happened, then-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace requested an injunction in the courts.

The reason for this, according to court documents, was to ‘preserve the confidentiality of the personal information for as long as possible in order that His Majesty’s Government may do everything it reasonably can to help those who might have been put at further risk by the data compromise’.

But when the time came for the injunction to be placed, Judge Robin Knowles decided to go a step further.

He wrote: ‘I conclude that it is an environment of no publication that best protects lives, although again the matter must and will be kept under constant review.’

This decision was made for eight reasons listed in the judgement:

• ‘The risk in question is to the lives of many individuals and their families, and of torture.’
• The confidentiality of the data was not completely lost, though it had been breached.
• The order would create a period of time where the data compromise is ‘not known or widely known’.
• It would be less likely for the information to fall into the wrong hands during that period.
• The period would provide an opportunity for the government to do ‘everything it reasonably can’ to help those at risk.
• The impact on freedom of expression was ‘justified in the particular and exceptional circumstances of this case’.
• The fact the injunction would probably no longer be needed at some point and be lifted would limit that impact.
• The operation and duration of the injunction would be kept under close review.

This order was so stringent, then-shadow Defence Secretary John Healey did not tell his party leader about the situation when he was briefed before last year’s election.

Instead, Sir Keir Starmer learned about it after he became Prime Minister.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

The Afghans who are being relocated helped to support British forces in their country (Picture: MOD/AFP via Getty Images)

Hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent on a secret scheme to relocate Afghan victims of a data leak to the UK…

I don’t know what the future holds for us all.

The FCDO shares information on 226 countries or territories.

The FCDO shares information on 266 countries or territories.

The FCDO shares information on 266 countries or territories.

The FCDO shares information on 266 countries or territories.

Peter Reynolds, 79, and his wife Barbie, 75, were returning to their home in Bamiyan on 1 February when they were detained

A British couple imprisoned in Afghanistan have faced 29 ‘interrogations’ by the Taliban and several cou…