The case builds on work by Richard Ovenden, who is currently Bodley’s librarian at the University of Oxford and president of the Digital Preservation Coalition. While an individual could be prosecuted for destroying messages after a freedom of information request is received, the recent arrival of simple-to-use self-destructing messaging functions in popular apps has raised new concerns about legal processes. Some officials have also been known to use accounts on the highly encrypted ProtonMail service to avoid scrutiny. To complicate matters, government business is increasingly conducted on encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp, which makes it harder to obtain records of the decision-making process. However, the ruling has proved difficult to enforce, with many politicians and advisers simply being more discreet about their use of private communications accounts. Gove and Cummings said they were discussing Conservative party matters, which were not covered by the rules. This followed a dispute between the Financial Times journalist Chris Cook and Dominic Cummings, then an adviser to Michael Gove, after Cummings was found to be directing individuals to contact him via his private email rather than his official work account. That has the democratic bargain exactly backwards.”Īlmost a decade ago, the Information Commissioner’s Office declared that private emails and text messages used to discuss government business were still subject to freedom of information requests. This government is amassing more and more data on all of us and we have less and less information on them. “The basic point is that privacy is for the citizen and transparency is for the government. Cori Crider, a director of the campaigning law group Foxglove, said: “It’s not appropriate to conduct government business on disappearing-message platforms.
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