LONDON — Scotland’s devolved government will stop using WhatsApp on official phones, it announced Tuesday.
All “non-corporate mobile message apps” will be removed from official devices from spring next year — in the wake of a review of the government’s policy on using them.
The ban will include all messaging apps not used for official government communications, including WhatsApp, Signal and Facebook Messenger.
Britain’s official coronavirus inquiry sparked intense debate about how politicians use Meta-owned WhatsApp. It revealed a string of embarrassing and often foul-mouthed messages and raised questions about official record-keeping.
Senior figures including the former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon faced a backlash after admitting to deleting many of their messages sent on the app during the pandemic.
Those who didn’t delete their messages faced seeing their private musings revealed to the public. Humza Yousaf — who briefly served as first minister — faced particular s scrutiny for some of his pandemic texts.
In one exchange with a senior Scottish health official, Yousaf — then health secretary — described the former Labour lawmaker Neil Findlay as an “a*sehole” and a “tw*t.” In another message, he called a top Scottish lawyer a “Tory f*ckwit.”
Announcing the ban in the Scottish parliament Tuesday, Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes said the use of WhatsApp during the pandemic was “understandable in such pressing times.”
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