Britain secretly spent $4.1m to stop journalists from reporting on data breach

LONDON – The British government spent US$3.2 million (S$4.1 million) on a secret legal order preventing journalists from reporting a data breach that put almost 19,000 Afghans and their families at risk, according to records obtained by The New York Times.

The breach, which happened in 2022, exposed the personal details of thousands of Afghans who had worked with British forces before the Taliban takeover in 2021.

The government, led by the Conservative Party at the time, went to England’s High Court to obtain an order barring anyone from disclosing the breach, even to the people whose lives were feared to be at risk from the Taliban as a result. Journalists were also prevented from reporting on the existence of the court order itself.

The government’s legal action began in August 2023, when journalists first asked the Ministry of Defence about the breach, and continued until the order was lifted in July. It cost the British government £2.4 million (S$4.1 million), or more than US$3.2 million, according to information disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information request.

Government ministers involved in the decision have since defended the stringent legal order, which is known in Britain as a “super injunction”, arguing that it was necessary to protect the people whose personal details had been disclosed. As a direct result of the data breach, Britain spent at least £400 million on a secret programme to relocate 4,500 Afghans to Britain.

But the government’s unprecedented use of a super injunction has intensified questions about freedom of the press in the country. The US State Department’s annual publication of reports on international human rights criticised Britain’s record on Aug 12, describing “credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression”, while Vice-President J.D. Vance has also argued that free speech is under threat.

The British government has said it upholds free speech, but that it balances that right with the need to prevent violent disorder, hate crimes and the swaying of trial juries.

Justice Martin Chamberlain, the judge who lifted the order relating to the Afghan data breach in July, said that it was the first super injunction ever granted “contra mundum”, meaning “against everyone”, and that it interfered with freedom of expression and Britain’s democratic processes.

When Labour entered government in 2024, it commissioned an independent review into the super injunction and the resettlement programme, which led to the lifting of the injunction and the public disclosure of the data breach.

Critics argued that the government’s legitimate interest in protecting the safety of Afghans was supplanted over time by a desire to avoid an embarrassing headline during an election year.

The breach happened in February 2022, when a member of the British military accidentally e-mailed an external contact a spreadsheet containing the details of 18,700 Afghan service personnel, police officers and others seeking refuge in Britain after the Taliban takeover.

The disclosure was not discovered until part of the spreadsheet was posted on Facebook in August 2023. Within days, journalists approached the Ministry of Defence about the breach, prompting the government’s application for an injunction.

Ms Holly Bancroft, the home affairs correspondent for The Independent newspaper, was among the first journalists to be served with the order. She told The New York Times that she was unaware of the data breach and had asked the Ministry of Defence why many Afghans who had previously been denied permission to travel to Britain were suddenly being approved – decisions she now knows were part of the emergency response.

Ms Bancroft said she had been invited into a room inside the ministry’s headquarters, handed a paper copy of the super injunction and told not to “talk to anyone about it” other than a lawyer.

Ms Bancroft estimates that over the next 18 months, she attended more than 20 hearings at London’s High Court, where The Independent and other news organisations, including The Times of London and Associated Newspapers, were campaigning for the injunction to be lifted. The government fielded a roster of senior lawyers to argue against them.

Asked for comment on Aug 13, the Ministry of Defence pointed to the statement made by Mr John Healey, the defence secretary, while disclosing the breach in July. He said he felt “deeply concerned about the lack of transparency” and had chosen to “reassess” the basis for the injunction when he entered government.

Mr Steve Kuncewicz, a specialist media lawyer from Glaisyers Solicitors, said that no legal power comparable to super injunctions existed in the United States and “couldn’t be considered” because of the First Amendment.

“They are a creature of the UK courts,” he said. The orders had previously been sought to prevent the disclosure of “embarrassing details of people’s private lives”, he noted, such as the order obtained in 2010 by former England football player John Terry over allegations of an extramarital affair.

The use of super injunctions has long been contentious in Britain but, Mr Kuncewicz said, the Afghan data breach case was “unique”.

“These orders are only meant to stay in place for the shortest amount of time, and be granted in the narrowest terms possible,” he added. “They are really chilling to free speech.” NYTIMES