Why are UK politicians somehow exempt from security concerns?

[andrewducker]

Why are government ministers allowed to have secret conversations about government business on insecure, foreign-owned, channels?

Shouldn't they be forced to use secure apps run by their security forces, set up to archive important matters?

This would then, for a start, avoid the whole "We used a random chat app we heard about from a mate, and then a big boy stole my phone, so there's no record of my conversations about the billions-worth of handouts to my friends."

And it's not like any of this is that hard. Matrix, an open source, secure protocol is used in parts of the French, German, U.K, Swedish, Finnish and U.S governments, as well as the likes of NATO and adjacent organizations. The UK government could trivially run its own servers, or invest in an alternative if there was a really good reason to. Or, fuck it, set up Teams, which at least allows you to control, monitor, and archive messages.

To quote a friend who works in the communications industry:

There are extraordinarily strict rules for people in the public and private sectors who work with national security and the consequences for breaking privacy, using the wrong platforms, within the wrong environments includes anything up to dismissal and prison. Incredibly invasive background checks, moreso if national security is involved, are required to even *get* these jobs. That *MPs* are somehow magically exempt from these things is beyond reason.

Comments

[doug]

Proper, secure channels are annoying and slow compared to the ones you happen to be using casually. It is hard to say no to Cabinet ministers. It is also hard to say no to executives, but they are accountable to the Board and ultimately the shareholders, and they care enough to enforce it in many (but not all!) cases. But Cabinet ministers are accountable to the Prime Minister, Parliament, and ultimately the public, none of whom seem to want to enforce it.

I don’t think this is a good state of affairs.

[channelpenguin]

Gosh yes. Laziness and habit is no doubt a big factor too.

[dewline]

What gets me is that there's word making the Twitter rounds that the current Leader of the Opposition here in Canada - Pierre Poilievre - is refusing to get his security clearance updated so that he can be read into various things of high importance to Canadian national security. Pointedly refusing, goes the accusation, so that he can continue to denounce the government led by Justin Trudeau without any grounding in facts that - if his clearances were properly updated - he would not be able to make public.

How that logic "works"? If at all?

Given the behaviours taken up by other right-wing political parties across the planet in recent years, I'm sure it "works" for them somehow.

[heron61]

Wow, I had no idea this was the case - this is *vastly* different (and surprisingly, far more sensible) for elected federal officials in the US. I remember in 2008 that Obama had to get special permission to keep using his Blackberry.

[danieldwilliam]

They are not exempt from the Official Secrets Acts. If they negligently use an insecure channel and as a result classified information is compromised then the could be proscecuted and convicted.

I think what is missing here is someone telling them that this is the case and a genuine concern on their part that they would in fact be proscuted.