A whistleblower has told a parliamentary probe that British authorities left behind classified equipment enabling the militant group to locate local individuals who worked with allied troops.
The source, known as Person A, stated that Afghans affected by the security lapse were advised to move homes and switch their mobile numbers to ensure their safety from the ruling authorities.
Members of Parliament are looking into the UK government's handling of a massive leak of private information concerning nearly 19,000 Afghans who had requested to come to the UK to escape militant rule.
A data file with their personal data, including identities, phone numbers and in some cases relative details, was inadvertently disclosed by an official stationed at special operations center in early 2022.
The breach became known in late 2023, when details of several individuals who had applied to move to the UK surfaced on social media.
“There seems to be this misconception that militant forces do not have comparable resources that we have,” she told the committee.
“We left it all behind in Afghanistan; they possess it. Should they obtain a contact number, they are able to track your exact position. That is what specialized teams achieved.”
When questioned about if militant forces possessed necessary encryption, the whistleblower confirmed: “They have complete capability.”
Preliminary research submitted to the investigation suggested that no fewer than forty-nine family members and associates of individuals impacted by the incident had been executed.
A gag order concerning the incident was enacted in August 2023 and blocked any information about it from public disclosure until recently.
Due to legal constraints, the whistleblower and the non-governmental organization she collaborated with told affected households they were working with that they had “concerns that certain devices had been breached”.
“We recommended that they moved when possible and switched their phone numbers. Those were the crucial data that, if authorities obtained these details, would result in their location being found,” Person A explained.
The whistleblower disputed that government assessment conducted by an ex-government employee had been wrong to state that the obtaining of the dataset by militant forces was “not significantly alter an individual's existing exposure”.
“The crucial point is that affected people are in hiding from the Taliban; they remain concealed. Everything boils down to their previous employment.”
Person A described terrible violence suffered by concerned people, involving electrocution, simulated drowning, and violent assaults.
“Instances include four-year-old children who have had their arms broken to pressure the family to disclose hiding places,” she testified.
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