Industrial-scale message deletion puts transparency to the test
Scotland is confronting a major test of its transparency framework. Revelations that senior officials deleted WhatsApp messages during the COVID-19 pandemic have triggered political outrage and a proposed Freedom of Information (FOI) reform bill that would make it a crime to destroy government communications, even before any request is made.
From casual chat to political scandal
The controversy emerged as inquiries into the pandemic response uncovered how key decisions were discussed not only in formal emails and papers but also through encrypted messaging apps. According to evidence presented to the Scottish Covid Inquiry, some senior figures treated message deletion as a daily routine rather than an exception.
These practices have been described in detail by a number of outlets, including an analysis in Freedom Magazine, which highlighted WhatsApp exchanges where Scotland’s National Clinical Director reportedly joked that “WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual.” In another exchange, a senior official warned colleagues that their conversations were “discoverable under FOI,” adding that they should know where the “clear chat” button was, before signing off with the words “plausible deniability.”
At the centre of the storm are former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and former Deputy First Minister John Swinney, who face questions about the disappearance of their pandemic-era messages. Critics argue that erasing these records has deprived bereaved families, parliament and the wider public of a full understanding of how life-or-death decisions were made in 2020 and 2021.
A reform bill aimed at destruction of records
In response, Scottish parliamentarian Katy Clark has introduced a reform to strengthen Scotland’s FOI architecture. While Scotland already has a dedicated freedom of information law, the new bill tackles one of its weakest points: the deliberate destruction of information before it ever reaches the scope of an FOI request.
The proposal would encourage disclosure across the system and, crucially, make it a criminal offence to alter, conceal or destroy information related to the work of public bodies, whether or not a request has been lodged. The message is clear: public records are not the personal property of officials, and erasing them in advance to avoid scrutiny would cross a legal red line.
Clark has described it as “completely unacceptable” for politicians and officials to wipe WhatsApps, texts and other messages about government work. She has stressed that, given the human cost of the pandemic and decisions such as admitting infected patients into care homes, explanations about missing messages are “simply not good enough.”
Banning WhatsApp is “too little, too late” for many
Under pressure, the Scottish Government has announced that WhatsApp and similar apps will no longer be used for official business. Ministers now insist that “government business should happen on government systems” that are secure, searchable and suitable for archiving, such as official email and approved internal platforms.
Opposition politicians and bereaved families are far from reassured. For them, banning WhatsApp now does nothing to restore the records that have already vanished. The phrase “industrial-scale deletion” has entered the debate, capturing the perception that the behaviour went beyond isolated lapses and reflected a culture of evasion.
Critics argue that simply switching platforms is not enough. Without robust record-keeping duties, independent oversight and credible penalties for destroying information, they fear that similar practices could emerge on other systems – including those with auto-delete functions or ephemeral messaging settings.
FOI in Scotland: a success story under strain
Scotland’s FOI framework is, in many respects, a success story. Since the law entered into force in 2005, some 1.4 million requests have reportedly been fulfilled. Around 86 percent of requests have been answered within the required 20 working days, a performance that would be envied in many jurisdictions.
The system is also heavily used and widely supported by the public. Most appeals to the Scottish Information Commissioner are made not by media outlets but by ordinary citizens seeking to understand how decisions are taken and how public money is spent. Public awareness surveys consistently show that people value the right of access to information and do not consider FOI a waste of public resources.
Yet the WhatsApp scandal demonstrates how quickly a well-regarded system can be undermined if it fails to keep pace with changes in technology and political culture. When major policy choices are discussed in disappearing chats rather than formal correspondence, FOI laws designed for paper files and email archives risk being left behind.
Civil society pushes back for accountability
Civil society actors have responded strongly to the reform initiative. The Campaign for Freedom of Information in Scotland (CFOIS), long an advocate for stronger transparency rules, has welcomed the bill and called for all-party backing. Its director, Carole Ewart, has emphasised the need to restore and reinforce the “architecture of transparency, accountability and scrutiny” built over the past two decades.
For CFOIS and other advocates, the proposed criminal offence for destroying information is not about punishing honest mistakes but about sending a clear signal: democratic accountability depends on the existence of a reliable record. If sensitive conversations can be erased at will, then FOI rights become hollow and inquiries into crises like the pandemic are permanently weakened.
Scotland’s debate is also watched closely beyond its borders. Across Europe, governments, parliaments and courts are wrestling with similar questions: how to treat text messages between officials and lobbyists; whether chats on private devices count as “official” records; and how to reconcile encryption and privacy with the public’s right to know.
Digital communications and the European rule-of-law agenda
The Scottish case slots into a wider European conversation on democracy, technology and the rule of law. Access-to-information rules at both national and EU level were largely written before encrypted apps and disappearing messages became standard tools of political life.
From national capitals to Brussels, watchdogs warn that if text and chat communications are treated as “off the record” by default, then key negotiations and decisions risk slipping out of view. For European democracies that present transparency and accountability as core values, this trend is particularly sensitive.
The European Times has repeatedly highlighted how robust transparency rules support public trust, especially in times of crisis. Scotland’s FOI reform bill is another illustration that legal frameworks must evolve if they are to capture the reality of how power is exercised in the digital age.
What is really at stake
Behind the legal language and political exchanges lies a simple question: should those who exercise public power have the ability to erase their own tracks?
For families who lost loved ones during the pandemic, deleted messages feel like a barrier to truth and closure. For journalists, NGOs and ordinary citizens, they undermine confidence that FOI rights will deliver a complete picture. And for legislators, they expose the gap between the spirit of transparency laws and the everyday practices of government.
The Freedom of Information Reform (Scotland) Bill will now go through parliamentary scrutiny. Its final form is uncertain, and some provisions may be watered down or reworked. But the principle at its core is hard to ignore: transparency requires not only the right to ask questions, but also the duty of public authorities to preserve the answers.
In a world of encrypted chats and auto-deleting threads, Scotland’s debate over WhatsApp, FOI and criminal sanctions for destroying records is ultimately about whether that informedness can still be guaranteed.
