Policy on WhatsApp and other mobile messaging apps: FOI release

Information requested

Part 1] Could you please send me all internal communications - including, but not limited to, emails, messages, minutes from meetings, communications between officials and between Ministers and officials - relating to the Scottish Government's policy on WhatsApp and other mobile messaging apps such as Telegram and Signal, including whether messages should be retained.

Part 2] This should include all internal discussions about the formation of the Scottish Government's policy in this area.

(The latest policy is here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/mobile-messaging-apps-usage-and-policy-guidance/

Please send me all such internal communications from January 2020 until the present. If this is not possible, then please send me all such internal communications from January 2021 until the present.

Response

Part 1 of your request:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. It would require a further triage and review of the all the results of the searches for relevant items and possibly additional preparation of content to redact personal information before sharing.

Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12. You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. This could be achieved through narrowing the timeframe or further specifying the subject matter.

You may find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

Part 2 of your request

In June 2021, the Scottish Government Executive Team agreed to consider whether further guidance was required on the use of Whatsapp, which saw the development of the Scottish Government Mobile messaging apps - usage and policy in November 2021. In line with the overarching Records Management Policy, this complementary guidance also makes clear that mobile messaging does not change individual civil servants’ responsibility to maintain complete and comprehensive records of key conversations and decisions, to be saved into the Electronic Records and Document Management system (eRDM).

Copies of relevant correspondence are included as attachments with this response which have been redacted under:

• Section 38 (1)(b) exemption which applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.
• There are redactions where content is considered to be out of scope.

The action was completed as directed by the Executive Team. Andy Bruce [Director of Communications & Ministerial Support] consulted with colleagues in SG Digital Directorate, and it was agreed that the extant guidance should be updated to provide revised guidance for ‘personal
messaging apps’. This was taken forward by Dave Watson, SG Chief Information Officer [CIO].

At that time CIO was
Head of the Government Knowledge and Information Management [GKIM] profession
Head of the Digital, Data and Technology [DDaT] profession.

As Chair of the Information Governance Delivery Board, CIO agreed to take the guidance document through that board, which had all the relevant contributors/scrutiny on it e.g. SG Legal Directorate, Communications, Ministerial Private Offices, Data Protection Officer, Freedom of Information Unit, People Directorate Cyber Security and Internal Audit).

I would refer you to the
Published FoI 202300383183
Published FoI 202300383191

Copies of relevant correspondence are included as attachments with this response which have been redacted under:

• Section 38 (1)(b) exemption which applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.
• There are redactions where content is considered to be out of scope.

Included in this response is a 2021 email to the SG Executive Team referencing an internal guidance note from 2019. At the time it was believed that the note had been published on the SG internal intranet, known as Saltire; it had not.

After further discussion with the creator of the note, it has been confirmed that this was drafted by the DG Economy Ministerial Overseas Visits team while exploring options for officials to use WhatsApp during overseas visits – so for that specific purpose. The intended audience were officials involved in the ministerial visit (in Scotland and those heading out abroad), and it was never published nor publicised more widely than the team discussion.

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FOI 202400395064 - Information released - Annex

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27 page PDF

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