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An informant has told a parliamentary probe that the UK abandoned classified equipment allowing Afghanistan's rulers to locate local individuals that had served with allied troops.

Information Leak Puts Thousands at Risk

Person A, called Person A, testified that people concerned by the security lapse were advised to move homes and alter their phone numbers to avoid detection from militant forces.

MPs are looking into the UK government's handling of a serious breach of private information affecting almost nineteen thousand individuals who had requested to move to the UK to flee the Taliban.

The Information Breach Was Discovered

A spreadsheet with their personal data, including names, contact details and occasionally household data, was accidentally leaked by an official stationed at British military command in last year.

The incident became known only in August 2023, when details of several individuals who had applied to move to Britain appeared on social media.

Regime's Resources

“There seems to be a misunderstanding that Afghan rulers do not have comparable resources that western nations possess,” she told MPs.

Technology was deserted in Afghanistan; it's in their hands. If they have a contact number, they can locate you down to within metres. This is exactly how intelligence groups achieved.”

During testimony about whether the Taliban owned advanced decryption, the source confirmed: “They have complete capability.”

Aftermath of the Security Lapse

Preliminary research presented to the committee suggested that no fewer than forty-nine family members and colleagues of individuals impacted by the breach had been murdered.

A gag order concerning the incident was enacted in late 2023 and restricted any information about it from media reporting until July 2025.

Safety Measures

Because she was restricted, the source and the aid group associated with informed individuals at risk they were assisting that they had “suspicions that somebody's phone had been breached”.

“We recommended that they change residence where feasible and switched their mobile numbers. These represented the two main details that, if the Taliban obtained this information, would cause identification and capture,” the source testified.

Contested Findings

Person A contested that internal investigation performed by a former official had been wrong to determine that the obtaining of the dataset by militant forces was “not significantly alter present danger”.

“The thing to remember is that these individuals are not confronting the authorities; they are in hiding. The primary issue involves their previous employment.”

Person A described terrible abuse experienced by affected individuals, comprising electrocution, interrogation techniques, and physical abuse.

“There are cases of young kids who have had their arms broken to force the family to reveal locations,” the whistleblower revealed.