On the face of it, the Afghan data breach is very bad indeed. It is arguably the worst leak of secret UK government names since the former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson went rogue and published a list online containing dozens of names of MI6 officers in 1999.

With a super injunction lifted, the defence secretary John Healey has revealed details of the 2022 breach, while the UK data protection regulator has commented on a ‘deeply regrettable’ incident A Ministry of Defence official accidentally shared the data of more than 18,