Ministers could be stopped from using self-destructing messages to conduct government business, following a legal challenge supported by an alliance of transparency campaigners and university archivists. WhatsApp recently introduced the option for users to make messages permanently disappear for both the sender and the recipient after seven days. He has said that politicians’ use of disappearing messages leaves them “unable to be scrutinised by the public who they are employed to serve” and affects both citizens and future historians. The lawyers argue that existing legislation dating from 1958 requiring documents to be archived does not distinguish between formats, whether they are formal letters or disappearing digital messages. A spokesperson for the Citizens said: “Government business is being conducted under a cloak of secrecy enabled by the tech platforms.

Source: The Guardian March 29, 2021 06:00 UTC