Submitted 11 months ago by Syldon@feddit.uk to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67780595
Whether you actual believe the messages going “missing” was an accident or not, this COVID inquiry has shown that there needs to be a proper review of how our MPs communicate.
I don’t have a solution but we need a better solution than an app owned by Meta where messages can just disappear.
It should be made a criminal offence to deliberately destroy government records. There needs to be an emphasis that they need to take active steps to protect those records. this lot are taking the piss.
It isn’t perfect by a long way but they are already licensed for Teams. Teams with the right settings can prevent named users such as MPs from deleting or editing any messages and messages are stored centrally. It can properly backup chats to a secure archive as well.
Obviously they can then get a tame techy with the right permissions to Teams and Purview to remove the messages but that’s going to apply to any system.
Also, if a tech deletes something in 365/Azure it gets logged. Thays why I always - ALWAYS - get orders in writing.
Government Matrix instances, perhaps one per department, with an undeletable backup on a secure server and everything unlocked with a fingerprint. No “oops they’re gone” or “I forgot my pin” (which for BoJo is definitely 00769).
If I communicate about work on WhatsApp, instead of one of our official channels. I end up going through disciplinary actions. This is basically how it works in ANY workplace, because you shouldn’t be discussing critical work stuff on a platform the workplace cannot fucking control!
I have no idea how MP’s get away with this, at all. I would be shocked if any work discussion on a public network (encryption or not) didn’t fall foul of some computer misuse rules in parliament.
How odd!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The leader of the House of Commons said that two years of WhatsApp chats with Boris Johnson had disappeared.
His spokesperson told the BBC that he has “sent all relevant messages in his possession to the inquiry and has complied exactly with their requests”.
She asked 14 times for a meeting with Boris Johnson’s chief of staff regarding the missing messages, “but had no response from his team”.
Later on, she was told that she would have to pay tens of thousands of pounds in order to have her phone forensically examined, because the device belonged to her and not the government.
She added that she had since discovered that a similar problem has occurred with WhatsApp messages exchanged with Michael Gove, who was chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at the time.
Again - whether he started a new WhatsApp account or transferred his old one to the new number, this would not affect the data stored on Ms Mordaunt’s phone.
The original article contains 552 words, the summary contains 162 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
It wouldn’t cost 10’s of thousands FFS. GCHQ could do it as one of their daily tasks.
Darkard@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The absolute gall of these people to just go “lol, dunno, they gone”.
SEIZE THIER PHONES
If I get arrested, I get my possessions taken off me and held as evidence. These pricks just delete everything and then “can’t recall” anything that was said. You can’t recall any important details about this worldwide pandemic that closed the country down for 2 years? Guess you have serious memory problems and shouldn’t be in government anymore.
Cunts the lot of them.
Devi@kbin.social 11 months ago
They knew it was coming way before it did. Boris had no messages before a certain date and claimed it was cause he had a new phone.
Labour MPs, and everyone else in the modern world, have pointed out that isn't how Whatsapp works, but his answer was basically "Oh well"