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London: The UK will resist paying compensation to thousands of Afghans caught up in a data leak scandal, The Times reported on Saturday.

The names and details of around 100,000 people in Afghanistan who worked with UK Armed Forces as part of the US-led coalition in the country were accidentally revealed online by a Ministry of Defence employee in February 2022.

It led to a massive covert program to bring large numbers of Afghans to Britain for fear they could be targeted by the Taliban, it emerged this week.

But the MoD will fight five-figure claims against it for endangering the lives of Afghans caught up in the leak following a review by former civil servant Paul Rimmer, ordered by Defence Secretary John Healey, which suggested that the risk to their safety had “diminished.”

Lawyers for the ministry say taxpayers have already paid enough after billions of pounds were set aside for the repatriation scheme of around 24,000 Afghan personnel and their families to the UK, a source told The Times.

Thousands of Afghans still trapped in their country have been left in fear for their safety after learning about the data breach on July 15.

The leak and accompanying repatriation scheme were kept from public knowledge after the government used a legal device called a superinjunction to prevent reporting on it. 

Before the superinjunction was lifted by a court, the government announced a small compensation scheme for victims of a separate, smaller data leak from 2021, of £4,000 ($5,364) per person.

The MoD will contest compensation claims by law firms representing Afghans affected by the 2022 breach.

The biggest lawsuit, brought by Barings Law, involves over 1,000 Afghan clients. The Times said it has seen WhatsApp messages sent to people in the UK, Afghanistan and Pakistan urging them to register with Barings to join the lawsuit.

The firm’s head of data protection, Adnan Malik, said around 100 people a day are signing up to sue the MoD, and the firm expects to be able to win payouts of “at least five figures” for those who can prove they had been contacted by the ministry confirming that their details were leaked.

Law firm Leigh Day is also suing the government on behalf of hundreds of Afghan clients. “We are currently acting for a number of existing clients and are also being approached each day by dozens more people who have been affected,” Sean Humber, a partner at the firm, told The Times.

The MoD confirmed that around 5,400 Afghans still in their country are eligible for flights to the UK under the Afghan Response Route and the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy.

It expects to have relocated all those deemed at risk from the Taliban and with a right to come to Britain under its various programs by 2029.

An MoD spokesman told The Times: “We will robustly defend against any legal action or compensation. The independent Rimmer Review concluded that it is highly unlikely that merely being on the spreadsheet would be grounds for an individual to be targeted, and this is the basis on which the court lifted its super injunction this week.”