Information Commissioner’s report shows government has yet to fix its WhatsApp problem 

A new report by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ^[1] looks at how WhatsApp, private emails and other non-government messaging systems had been used by Matt Hancock, Lord Bethell, Helen Whateley and others in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during the pandemic.  

While the ICO is at pains to note that WhatsApp can bring benefits to government, particularly during such testing times as the pandemic, the report also makes clear that it is essential to deal with the risks of using WhatsApp to do government business.

The ICO report draws similar conclusions to IfG work 

Earlier this year the IfG published a report looking at how WhatsApp is used in government. We argued that there are many benefits to the app – it is quick and convenient, it allows group conversations, and it can help ministers and officials cut through heavy workloads and burdensome bureaucracy. 

But, as the ICO said, “on the balance of probabilities, mistakes will have been made in maintaining the public record.” Conversations in the app are inevitably less detailed than a meeting, a discussion by email or a presentation, meaning decision-makers may not have access to all the information they would in another format. The fact that WhatsApp conversations move very quickly and that they are not easy to search means that key information may not be accessible to people within government, which is a problem for those trying to understand what decision was made and why. And, in the longer-term, this is also a problem for people not in government – poor record-keeping of WhatsApp messages means reduced transparency and a potential inability for government departments to respond to freedom of information (FOI) requests.  

The use of WhatsApp is a problem across government 

The ICO’s report focuses on DHSC due to that department’s use of WhatsApp during the pandemic, but the report is clear that ministers and officials in other departments also use WhatsApp and other private means of communication to conduct government business.  

This echoes the findings from our own research. We sent an FOI request to all departments asking about their departmental policy on WhatsApp – the replies that we received revealed widely different approaches, with some departments banning WhatsApp outright and some where almost a third of officials had the app on their government phones. As we argued in our report, there is nothing inherently wrong with using WhatsApp in government, but departments should issue guidance to officials and ministers to manage the risks.  

The Cabinet Office needs to get a grip of WhatsApp across government  

The ICO report calls on the Cabinet Office to launch a “strategic review” of how WhatsApp and other private communication tools are used in government, looking at risks and areas for improvement, and whether departments should take a more consistent approach. WhatsApp is not going away, and nor should it, so government needs to properly understand how it is used and make sure that there are systems in place to protect decision-making and transparency.   

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1. ICO, Behind the screens – maintaining government transparency and data security in the age of messaging apps¸ ICO, July 2022