Top MoD civil servant to leave in wake of Afghan data breach
By: | Published: 2025-08-01 17:00:00 | Source: www.bbc.com
The chief civil servant at the Ministry of Defence will be replaced in the wake of the Afghan data breach, the department has announced.
The move follows one of the worst UK data breaches for decades being revealed to the public last month, in a major embarrassment for defence and intelligence services.
The leak, which went undetected for months and was then subject to a super-injunction, put the identities of British spies, soldiers, and vulnerable Afghan allies at risk.
Permanent Secretary David Williams will leave this autumn and recruitment for his successor has started, the MoD confirmed.
The breach happened in February 2022, when an official working at UK Special Forces headquarters inadvertently emailed out a spreadsheet containing the personal details of almost 19,000 people…