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A whistleblower has told the Afghan leak inquiry that British authorities abandoned sensitive technology allowing the Taliban to identify Afghans who worked with international military.

Information Leak Puts Numerous in Danger

Person A, called Person A, stated that individuals impacted by the security lapse were told to move homes and switch their phone numbers to protect themselves from the Taliban.

Members of Parliament are looking into official handling of a serious disclosure of confidential data concerning almost nineteen thousand individuals who had asked to move to Britain to avoid the Taliban.

The Information Breach Occurred

A data file including private information, comprising names, phone numbers and occasionally household data, was inadvertently disclosed by a worker employed at British military command in early 2022.

The leak was discovered in late 2023, when details of multiple applicants who had applied to relocate to Britain were posted on Facebook.

Taliban Capabilities

Many believe there's a false assumption that Afghan rulers do not have the same sort of facilities that western nations possess,” Person A informed MPs.

All equipment was abandoned in Afghanistan; they have it. Should they obtain a contact number, they can trace your exact position. That is what the unit achieved.”

When questioned about if militant forces had access to necessary encryption, Person A confirmed: “They've got everything.”

Impact of the Security Lapse

Initial findings provided to the inquiry suggested that no fewer than forty-nine family members and associates of people concerned by the leak had been murdered.

A superinjunction concerning the breach was enacted in August 2023 and restricted relevant facts concerning it from being made public until July 2025.

Safety Measures

Due to legal constraints, Person A and the aid group she was working with advised affected households they were working with that they had “apprehensions that mobile communications had been breached”.

“We recommended that they relocate if they could and altered their contact details. These represented the primary information that, if the Taliban obtained this information, would cause identification and capture,” Person A explained.

Contested Findings

Person A disputed that an official review conducted by a former official had been mistaken to state that the obtaining of the records by the Taliban was “not significantly alter present danger”.

“The thing to remember is that affected people are not confronting militant forces; they remain concealed. The primary issue involves former occupations.”

She detailed terrible violence experienced by concerned people, including electrocution, interrogation techniques, and severe beatings.

“There are cases of four-year-old children who have had bones crushed to force households to reveal locations,” Person A stated.