Boris Johnson ignored security guidance over use of personal phone
A classified document warned ministers in 2019 that hackers could compromise their personal devices
Prime Minister Boris Johnson ignored his own government's security guidance when he used his personal mobile phone to discuss government business issues.
That's according to The Times, which reports the Prime Minister 'likely' discussed a deal to sell the Newcastle United football club in his private messages to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
British billionaire Sir James Dyson is also said to have sent Johnson text messages about tax benefits for his staff coming to Britain to supply ventilators, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Times says Johnson and senior ministers were advised to avoid using personal devices, in classified documents after the parliamentary elections in 2019.
A document titled 'The Security of Government Business' and marked as 'Official - Sensitive' warned ministers that their email accounts and personal mobile phones were at risk of hacking from malicious actors.
Despite that, the prime minister is said to have texted both bin Salman and Dyson using his personal phone.
The details of the classified advice were revealed as part of a legal proceeding filed against the government by non-profit organisation The Citizens and campaign group Foxglove.
The campaigners are concerned that ministers could use messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal for official communication, and later delete those messages. They argue that the use of self-deleting messages lacks transparency and poses an 'urgent threat to democratic accountability and to the future of the public record'.
The UK Public Records Act 1958 mandates all government records about government policy be reviewed and retained for public archiving. That includes communications like emails and text messages.
In June, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport told campaigners that ministers are allowed to use instant messaging (through Google Workspace) in preference to email 'for routine communications where there is no need to retain a record of the communication.'
'Chat messages are retained for 90 days to provide staff with the opportunity to record any substantive conversations, after which time they are permanently deleted. Users can also switch history off, meaning messages will be deleted once a chat session has finished,' it added.
Clara Maguire, the executive director of The Citizens, told The Times it was "amazing" to know that the "government actually has a secret policy banning the use of WhatsApp messages and private email for government business".
In April, it emerged that the Prime Minister's personal phone number had been available online for about 15 years.
In March, Sky News claimed that secret information belonging to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was exposed in multiple breaches in 2020, after employees transferred files from secure networks to personal email accounts.
The outlet said it had obtained heavily redacted defence documents, which showed the MoD's private sector contractors failed to protect secret military and defence data in 151 security incidents in 2020, and 75 in 2019.