Personal details of UK special forces and spies were included in Afghan data breach | BBC News - video Dailymotion

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#Afghansitan  #BBCNews  The personal details of serving and former members of UK special forces, and the security services, were included in the Afghan data breach, it can now be reported.  In total, the details of more than 100 British officials were released in February 2022, alongside thousands of Afghans' details.  The breach happened when a British official leaked a spreadsheet by mistake - it was later subject to a super-injunction, meaning no details could be reported.   Subscribe here: http://bit.ly/1rbfUog   For more news, analysis and features visit: www.bbc.com/news   #Afghansitan #BBCNews

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00:00begin with that breaking news because it has been revealed that the personal details of UK

00:05special forces and spies were included in the huge data leak that resulted in thousands of

00:11Afghans being secretly relocated to the UK. Well the latest revelations showed the details of more

00:17than 100 MI6 spies, SAS and special forces personnel were also in that spreadsheet that

00:24was emailed outside of the government by a defence official in error. On Tuesday an unprecedented

00:30super injunction was lifted and we learned that the leaked database contained the personal

00:35information of nearly 19,000 Afghans who'd worked with the British during the 20-year conflict in

00:42Afghanistan and had applied to be resettled to the UK after the Taliban retook control in 2021.

00:48Well the latest detail on the scale of the security breach was kept under wraps by an injunction until

00:55today when the gagging order was lifted in part by a high court judge. The names were in a spreadsheet

01:01that was emailed outside of the government back in February 2022. The Ministry of Defence became aware

01:07of that breach later when the excerpts of that spreadsheet were anonymously posted on Facebook

01:12and that was in August 2023. Well that is the backdrop to today's development. Frank Gardner our

01:19security correspondent is here with me and Frank well another extraordinary twist here.

01:25Yeah I mean if we thought it was bad enough the revelations that have come out in the last two days

01:30this week this is even in some ways even more shocking because you know the entire kind of shtick

01:38of working for special forces or for secret intelligence is that you try to keep your identity

01:44secret and those names contact details and who knows what other details were on that were included

01:53in that unauthorized data breach that went out not once but twice in February 22. Now what happened here

02:00was that there was a Royal Marine who was seconded to special forces headquarters or what's called the

02:07Directorate of Special Forces at a base in London in central London. He was tasked to check up on the

02:15applications being made by former members of Afghan special forces. To do that job he contacted certain

02:22other members who were trusted. Unfortunately in contacting them he included an attachment that had

02:29all of these details. Now we didn't know until today that I mean it was bad enough that there were these

02:3318,700 names of Afghans on it but also 100 sort of supposedly classified secret names which should

02:42never get out into the open were also included. Now what that does mean is that the UK intelligence

02:50community and the special forces community have had since August 2023 when this was discovered

02:56along with the rest of government in which to mitigate the effects of this. So the people who I think are going to be

03:02most worried about this are not really the spooks and the spook spies and special forces soldiers

03:09because they've known about this for the last two years. It's going to be those poor hapless 600

03:15former Afghan soldiers and their 1800 dependents who are still in Afghanistan.

03:21A twin thought though, do we know that whether there were any consequences of their names also being on this list?

03:28And on Tuesday we learned when we discovered all about this that actually the Afghans hadn't been told

03:35until Tuesday. In this case with the spies and the SAS personnel, were they told all of that time ago?

03:43We keep putting the question to the MOD, to the Ministry of Defence, you know, has anybody been arrested,

03:50tortured, killed, captured, whatever as a result of this and they've said they don't know or they don't

03:56have a handle on that. There is a discrepancy here. There is a gap between one version which is being

04:04very much sort of put forward by the MOD that look, the Taliban know what they know, so there's nothing

04:08really to nothing to see here in a way. And also the Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman saying yesterday,

04:14no, we offered an amnesty, you know, again, nothing to see here. But the Daily Telegraph has spoken to

04:20two senior Taliban officials who they say have said, actually, we've had this list since 2022. And yeah,

04:27we are working our way through it. So this is extremely worrying, not just for those 2,400 Afghan

04:35people involved whose names are linked to this list, who are still in Afghanistan, but their relatives back

04:41here in the UK and in the wider Afghan diaspora. So this story just gets worse and worse. Frank,

04:46thank you so much for that. Let's continue with this. Let's speak to the former commander of UK and

04:51NATO forces, Hamish de Breton Gordon. He also writes for the Daily Telegraph. And Hamish, you were listening

04:57to all of that. This is all new information. When you hear what we've heard in the last little while,

05:04what do you make of it? Well, I think first of all, it really shows how important that super,

05:10whatever injunction was, and people should understand it, that now that we know, quite

05:16apart from all the Afghans who have been identified by this data leak, our security services and also

05:23our special forces. And as Frank said, they've had a few years to make sure that they can mitigate it.

05:31But I expect a lot of these people are still operative. And the special forces and our security

05:37services are absolutely crucial for the defence and security of this country. So anything that affects

05:43that is really damaging. But I think going forward, hopefully media organisations throughout

05:50this country and the world will not publish names quite apart from the Afghans. As you said,

05:56there are still some in Afghanistan who potentially are under threat from the Taliban, but also our own

06:02security and security and special forces operators. We don't think that there's a threat from the

06:08Taliban in this country. But certainly we need to have our security services and special forces being able

06:15to operate without fear of being identified, because once they're identified, obviously it makes their task

06:22even more difficult, if not untenable. Yes, you must be staggered that, in effect,

06:29all of these people have been compromised in the way they have. And what questions now do you think

06:37do need to be answered, given that the public only found out about all of this a couple of days ago?

06:44Well, I think there's one thing about the public being satisfied that everything has been done

06:49to make sure that the damage is limited. And this is, you know, several, a few years old now,

06:56so one would assume that the government, the MOD and the security services have been working very,

07:02very hard to make sure that that is the case. And also to make sure that in future this sort of thing

07:09doesn't happen. I mean, we're in an era now where the keyboard is almost as dangerous, if not more

07:15dangerous than other sort of weapons of war. And I suppose it's a realisation that that is absolutely

07:22the case. And we must be completely scrupulous with all our dealings in this particular area.

07:27But going forward, I think we, you know, I'm sure the government and all the agencies will make,

07:34want to make sure that they can do all they can to protect those people still in threat in Afghanistan,

07:40and also to make sure that that the names of our security services and special forces

07:48are kept secret so they can do the brilliant job that they do every day of the year to protect us

07:53in this country. Hey, Mr. Bretton-Corton, we have to leave it there. But thanks for your time.

07:57Thanks for giving us that snapshot reaction to those breaking developments.

Personal details of UK special forces and spies were included in Afghan data breach | BBC News

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