Payout offered to Afghans hit by UK data breaches

Afghan nationals whose personal information was mistakenly exposed by the Ministry of Defence in 2021 will be offered up to £4,000 each in compensation, the government has said.

The data breaches affected 277 people, some of whom had worked for the UK government and were in hiding from insurgent Taliban forces at the time.

Defence Minister Luke Pollard said he could not “undo past mistakes” but promised that the payments would be made “as quickly as reasonably practical”.

The government expects the total cost to be around £1.6m and comes on top of the £350,000 it had to pay after receiving a fine from the data watchdog.

The biggest breach…