An inquiry into the handling of the Covid pandemic has revealed that all of Nicola Sturgeon’s WhatsApp messages appear to have been deleted. The inquiry heard Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, say that the former first minister had “retained no messages whatsoever” throughout the pandemic. Meanwhile, Sturgeon’s deputy John Swinney’s WhatsApp messaging had been set to auto-delete. Sturgeon had previously denied having anything to hide but did not clarify if her WhatsApp messages had been deleted.
The COVID inquiry, sitting in Scotland for three weeks, heard from Lesley Fraser, director general corporate at the Scottish government. During her testimony, Fraser stated that newer technologies, such as Zoom, had been used during the pandemic and that records were not retained in the same way they would today. Fraser confirmed that the Scottish government had been unable to supply Sturgeon’s messages from its corporate record, and that Swinney’s messages were either deleted manually or via auto-delete function.
Fraser explained that some of the messages sent were simply “banter” that did not require retaining, while others may have been lost when phones were upgraded. She also described how ministers managed their messages involving their private offices in a way that stopped messaging from becoming “unmanageable.” The inquiry was also informed of a table supplied by the Scottish government last October summarising ministers’ usage of retention of messages and notebooks. It indicated that messages under Sturgeon’s name had been deleted.
Whilst newer technologies such as Zoom were apparently used more frequently, this seems to have created difficulties in keeping records of conversations and messages. It cannot be confirmed whether any of these deleted communications would have been crucial to the inquiry, but it brings up important questions over data retention across government bodies during a state of crisis such as a pandemic
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