UK spent $5.4m on secret legal order stopping media reporting on Afghan data breach

The previous British Conservative Government spent $5.4 million on a legal order preventing reporting on a 2022 data breach affecting 19,000 Afghans. Photo / Getty Images

The British Government spent £2.4 million ($5.4m) on a secret legal order preventing journalists from reporting on 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 last month.

It cost the British Government £2.4m ($5.4m), 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 £400m on a secret programme to relocate 4500 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 United States State Department’s annual publication of reports on international human rights criticised Britain’s record yesterday, describing “credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression”.

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 last month, 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 last year, 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.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Lizzie Dearden

©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES