The Scottish government is abolishing the use of WhatsApp and other “non-corporate” messaging services for government businesses on its mobile equipment.

This step was revealed by the UK’s Kovid inquiries that the officials and ministers had removed the exchange of WhatsApp messages during the epidemic.

Was the government The first WhatsApp is committed to ending its use And other non-official message applications by this year’s spring.

Deputy Minister Kate Forbes said that the move would increase “openness and transparency” in the government – but Scottish conservatives said that the people would not be deceived to think that an overdated concession marks the change in culture. ,

The opposition MSP has said that the new policy is a “clear entry” from the government that it was wrong to remove the messages during the epidemic.

The policy is now affected, but some emergency and security teams will continue to phase out the app by the end of the year.

As part of UK Kovid inquiries, it emerged as top civil servants and government ministers including Nicola Sturgeon and John Swine, removing WhatsApp messages referring to government business, which was requested by the investigation team.

However, he said that any “main” points were recorded on the corporate record and only informal messages were removed.

Other Scottish government ministers – including Forbes, who served as Finance Secretary during the epidemic – said that he had retained his WhatsApp messages.

Hamza Yusuf, the successor of the sturgeon, ordered a review of mobile messaging, which was performed by Emma Martins – Former Channel Islands Data Protection Commissioner.

The report found that a consistent and comprehensive knowledge, understanding, or application “was given” including the rules around retention, export and deletion “.

On the mobile messaging application, the policy of the Scottish government states that any material related to the decisions is to be recorded on the corporate record.

Kate Forbes earlier stated that government figures had worked in accordance with that policy, but they had “reflected” on this policy.

“The use of mobile messaging apps increased during the epidemic as the employees worked far away under unprecedented and difficult circumstances,” she said.

“After reflecting on our working practices, we are now implementing changes in the use of such apps.”

The Deputy Minister said that the policy will apply to all Scottish government employees, including contractors, senior civil servants, special advisors and ministers.

He said that ministers and employees should use corporate-oriented apps, such as team and email, and individual phones should not be used for the official business.

Forbes said that the government preferred to have “safe and searchable data” as per the record management rules.

He said: “We will continue working to ensure that our data policies are strong, especially considering technological development.”

Scottish conservative MSP Craig Hoy said: “It is as close as we will apologize to SNP for embarrassing, industrial scale deletion of Covid WhatsApp messages who were orchestrated by John Swine and Nicola Sturgeon.

“This change in the policy is all well and good, but the horse has already bolted to the bereaved families that were denied the answers that they were entitled to the decisions taken by the SNP ministers during the epidemic.

“Privacy and theft are rigid in this SNP government, so Scottish people will not be deceived to think that an overdue concession marks changes in culture.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Coal-Hamilton said the new policy did not change the fact that the Scottish government removed WhatsApp messages “on a wholesale basis” during the epidemic.

He said: “In doing so, he mourned the entire understanding of the decisions by Kovid, by reducing his discovery for justice and closure.

“The SNP must move the mountains, before the people can be convinced that this deception will not happen again.”

The UK government was also criticized on record-chaping, former Scottish Secretary Alastair Jack said that he had removed all his messages to create a memory space on his phone.

The Scottish Information Commissioner, who oversees the freedom of information laws, also initiated a review of how officials and ministers used informal communication and maintained.

The Watchdog said the UK Kovid inquiries raised “important practice concerns” how ministers used message services like WhatsApp.