Shapps said if there was any doubt, erring on the side of caution was "entirely justified", adding his focus was on "saving lives". The data of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had worked with the British during the 20-year war in Afghanistan and had applied to resettle in the UK were inadvertently leaked in February 2022.

The physical risk resulting from this leak to those members of UK Special Forces whose names were on the leaked dataset is judged to be minimal.