Scottish Government bans Whatsapp for ministers

17 December 2024, 15:36

Scottish government ministers and staff are to be banned from using WhatsApp for official business.

Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes told MSPs in Holyrood that by spring next year no government device would be able to use "non-corporate" messaging apps.

The announcment came after an external review into the use of Whatsapp and other applications. The review was launched after the UK Covid inquiry revealed officials and ministers had deleted WhatsApp messages exchanged during the pandemic.

Forbes said: "Government business should happen on government systems which are secure, searchable and allow the appropriate sharing of information, in line with our statutory duties."

She said non-corporate messaging apps will be removed from government devices, and the "technical environment" configured, so that they cannot be downloaded again.

Instead ministers and staff will use corporate-approved apps, such as Teams and email, for official business, and guidance would be issued to ensure personal phones are not used for official work.

The Scottish government's policy on mobile messaging applications states that any material relevant to decisions has to be recorded on the corporate record, but the Covid inquiry revealed that Whatsapps were being deleted without records being kept.

The Covid inquiry heard that several Scottish government figures, including Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney, deleted messages that referred to government business during the pandemic.

Sturgeon and Swinney were accused of "industrial scale" deletion of messages by opposition parties but said any "salient" points were recorded on the corporate record and only informal messages were deleted.

Other Scottish government ministers - including Forbes, who served as finance secretary during the pandemic - said they had retained their WhatsApp messages.

Government staff, such as National Clinical Director Jason Leitch, said deleting Whatsapps was a bedtime ritual.

Forbes said during the pandemic government figures acted in line with government policy, but they had since "reflected" on the policy in hindsight.

However Scottish Conservative MSP Sandesh Gulhane said the announcement was a "clear admission" that what ministers and officials did during the pandemic was wrong, and said there should be an immediate Whatsapp ban rather than waiting til next year.

And Scottish Labour's Daniel Johnson accused government figures of editing and removing information that should have been on the public record during the pandemic.

The review into government use of Whatsapp was launched by former First Minister Humza Yousaf, and carried out by former Channel Islands data protection commissioner Emma Martins. Her report, which was delivered to the government last month, was published alongside Forbes' statement to parliament.

The UK government was also criticised over its record-keeping by the Covid inquiry, with former Scottish Secretary Alister Jack admitting he had deleted all of his messages to create memory space on his phone.

The Scottish Information Commissioner, who oversees freedom of information (FOI) laws, also launched a review into how officials and ministers use and retain informal communications, and sad there were "significant practice concerns" over how ministers used messaging services such as WhatsApp.