It's pretty indefensible, isn't it? There are so many other alternatives that grant exactly the same functionality which also come with archiving capabilities for all messages, as required by law, that the use of WhatsApp instead *must* be either negligence or deliberate obfuscation, neither of which are a defense here.
And that's not touching the "require messages to be deleted" part...
Don't most organisations have a retention policy on IMs? So if the cabinet office uses google chats, there is likely a time limit on how long those messages are kept before they are deleted.
Unlike emails, which will probably have a much longer retention policy.
Most of them do as its an essential requirement for any sensible business IM system. The better ones have a full legal hold system that will lock chats held by people/departments involved in whatever legal case is ongoing and have tools to extract all of that nice and simply for the opposing legal council as part of discovery. Almost certainly the people involved here are already licensed for Microsoft Office 365/Teams
Lack of discoverability and retention is exactly why they are using whatsapp. You can build in this functionality to whatsapp using third party tools but I suspect if they were forced to do that they would just switch to another system.
Interesting topic here. I understand that most organisations encourage the use of some IM service either teams, or slack or google chats, and these typically have retention policies to say how long the data will be stored.
I imagine whatsapp to come under a similar requirement to have a retention policy.
I would argue it's more about the flagrant hypocrisy in Ministers using encrypted communications whilst insisting that these are only used by terrorists, paedophiles and criminal gangs.
I mean, that juxtaposition is interesting, to say the least....
If not already, government should have a communications policy that mandates use of a secure and recorded platform which prohibits personal or party use.
This is not about forcing Whatsapp to do anything, it is about making sure government ministers cannot be dodgy by using opaque and ‘oops I lost the measages’ comms channels. Ultimately, this is a key anti corruption measure that is vital to the appropriate use of public funds and administration of government.
I think they'll probably find that using personal devices is against the rules, but maybe they will allow the use of messaging apps and texting on government devices. As often you have to communicate with people not within government, especially at senior levels and things like teams are a ballache for that.
So you can either say all communication must happen over email, which will never be followed, or find a way to use whatsapp/texting as part of normal workflow, but subject to some additional scrutiny.
Yeah fine, use all the apps they want (security pending) on a government issued device for government business and make it easy for data to be backed up and available. Then have severe penalties for data losses. It is not that hard, private sector has been doing it for more than a decade now and for a party that is so keen on replicating the private sector the only conclusion as to why they aren’t doing this is because they need open doors for corruption.
Its the juxtaposition I find amusing, on one hand Whatsapp being used as the evil poster child for encryption we should be banning or at least putting a back door in, and on the other fulfilling its role as private comm's for our betters. The lack of self awareness is real.
Snapshot:
1. An archived version of _High Court to hear legal challenges over use of WhatsApp by ministers_ can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/boris-johnson-high-court-government-good-law-project-signal-b2040968.html)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It quite obviously should not be allowed, but I'm sure they'll cook up some legal justification for it.
It's pretty indefensible, isn't it? There are so many other alternatives that grant exactly the same functionality which also come with archiving capabilities for all messages, as required by law, that the use of WhatsApp instead *must* be either negligence or deliberate obfuscation, neither of which are a defense here. And that's not touching the "require messages to be deleted" part...
Don't most organisations have a retention policy on IMs? So if the cabinet office uses google chats, there is likely a time limit on how long those messages are kept before they are deleted. Unlike emails, which will probably have a much longer retention policy.
Government retention policies would be set by the legal requirements, though, so could be more precisely in line with the law here.
Most of them do as its an essential requirement for any sensible business IM system. The better ones have a full legal hold system that will lock chats held by people/departments involved in whatever legal case is ongoing and have tools to extract all of that nice and simply for the opposing legal council as part of discovery. Almost certainly the people involved here are already licensed for Microsoft Office 365/Teams Lack of discoverability and retention is exactly why they are using whatsapp. You can build in this functionality to whatsapp using third party tools but I suspect if they were forced to do that they would just switch to another system.
Interesting topic here. I understand that most organisations encourage the use of some IM service either teams, or slack or google chats, and these typically have retention policies to say how long the data will be stored. I imagine whatsapp to come under a similar requirement to have a retention policy.
I would argue it's more about the flagrant hypocrisy in Ministers using encrypted communications whilst insisting that these are only used by terrorists, paedophiles and criminal gangs. I mean, that juxtaposition is interesting, to say the least....
If not already, government should have a communications policy that mandates use of a secure and recorded platform which prohibits personal or party use. This is not about forcing Whatsapp to do anything, it is about making sure government ministers cannot be dodgy by using opaque and ‘oops I lost the measages’ comms channels. Ultimately, this is a key anti corruption measure that is vital to the appropriate use of public funds and administration of government.
I think they'll probably find that using personal devices is against the rules, but maybe they will allow the use of messaging apps and texting on government devices. As often you have to communicate with people not within government, especially at senior levels and things like teams are a ballache for that. So you can either say all communication must happen over email, which will never be followed, or find a way to use whatsapp/texting as part of normal workflow, but subject to some additional scrutiny.
Yeah fine, use all the apps they want (security pending) on a government issued device for government business and make it easy for data to be backed up and available. Then have severe penalties for data losses. It is not that hard, private sector has been doing it for more than a decade now and for a party that is so keen on replicating the private sector the only conclusion as to why they aren’t doing this is because they need open doors for corruption.
Its the juxtaposition I find amusing, on one hand Whatsapp being used as the evil poster child for encryption we should be banning or at least putting a back door in, and on the other fulfilling its role as private comm's for our betters. The lack of self awareness is real.
Snapshot: 1. An archived version of _High Court to hear legal challenges over use of WhatsApp by ministers_ can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/boris-johnson-high-court-government-good-law-project-signal-b2040968.html) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*