Thousands of Afghans included on a list of people trying to flee the Taliban are likely to miss out on compensation after their details were accidentally leaked.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it will “robustly defend” an expected legal bid for compensation, adding it is “highly unlikely” those on the leaked spreadsheet were targeted as a result.
The MoD will also not proactively offer small compensation payments to those affected by the breach.
The data breach saw details of 18,714 applicants for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme released in 2022.
It exposed up to 100,000 Afghans to potential reprisals from the Taliban, cost the UK taxpayer billions and prompted a two-year cover-up through the use of an unprecedented superinjunction.
It also saw the establishment of a secret scheme, the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR), to bring some of those affected to the UK.
But an MoD spokesperson pointed to an independent review which found there is now little danger that appearing on the leaked spreadsheet would be enough to result in being targeted by the Taliban.
Hundreds of data protection claims are expected to be lodged, with the High Court hearing earlier this week that a Manchester-based firm already had several hundred prospective clients.
Previous Afghan data breaches led to the MoD compensating people whose details were leaked.
Earlier this month, before the superinjunction preventing reporting of the 2022 leak was lifted, armed forces minister Luke Pollard announced £1.6m in compensation for a separate incident involving the release of Afghan nationals’ data.
Mr Pollard said the MoD had agreed to pay up to £4,000 to each of the 265 people whose details were mistakenly copied into emails sent by the government in September 2021.
That breach also saw the government fined £350,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
But the ICO has said it will take no further action in relation to the larger 2022 breach, with Information Commissioner John Edwards saying there was “little we could add in this case” given the “high degree of public scrutiny” the MoD was already facing.
In total, the government expects 6,900 people to be brought to the UK under the ARR scheme, with costs reaching £850m.
Along with the Afghan nationals, the breach saw details of more than 100 British officials compromised, including special forces and MI6 personnel.
Hundreds of MoD data breaches have now been revealed as questions intensify over its ability to keep sensitive information safe in the wake of the Afghan leak.
The latest MoD figures show there were 569 incidents in 2023-24 – up from 550 the previous year – which included electronic devices being lost and protected documents not being disposed of properly.
In one incident last year, the details of 272,000 staff – including names and bank details – were breached when one of its systems, run by an external contractor, was hacked by a “malign actor”.
