00:00Six months after the fall of Kabul, a defence official emailed an ARAP case working file outside of authorised government systems.
00:12ARAP, as the House knows, is the resettlement scheme that this country established for Afghan citizens who worked for or with our UK armed forces over the combat years of Afghanistan.
00:30And both in opposition and in government, we have backed this scheme.
00:35I know ARAP also has had the full support from across this House.
00:40Now, this official mistakenly believed that they were sending the names of 150 applicants.
00:47However, the spreadsheet in fact contained personal information associated to 18,714 Afghans who had applied either to the Exgracia or the ARAP scheme on or before the 7th of January 2022.
01:06It contained names and contact details of applicants and, in some instances, information relating to applicants' family members.
01:18And in a small number of cases, Mr Speaker, the names of members of Parliament, senior military officers and government officials were noted as supporting the application.
01:29This was a serious departmental error.
01:34It was in clear breach of strict data protection protocols and it was one of many data losses relating to the ARAP scheme during this period.
