The cabinet said that all business applications and text messages from ministers and senior officials should be kept under wraps from now on. Prime Minister Mark Rutte has previously been criticized for deleting text messages from his cell phone over the years.
Rutte was using an old Nokia back then. By deleting a text message, that information is no longer available to other parties.
The prime minister claims that he only keeps messages that he thinks are important. He deleted the other messages. According to the Advisory Council on Public Access and Information Management (ACOI), he shouldn’t have done that.
In response to this, an independent advisory body suggested in January how key people in government should keep their messages under wraps from now on. The government is now responding to that.
For example, business messages from ministers and senior officials should be auto-saved as much as possible in the short term. The Cabinet wants to set up a special platform for this.
The function determines how long messages are stored
Whether and for how long messages should be stored depends on one’s position. For example, chat messages from ministers are stored longer than those from civil servants. Apps and text messages from other civil servants may remain on the phone.
The policy will not start immediately. The government will start a pilot in the third quarter of this year. Then proceed with the feasibility test.
To prevent loss of information, ministers are not allowed to delete apps and text messages until the new policy takes effect.
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