Officials and ministers are no longer allowed to delete work-related text messages due to new measures introduced by the Ministry of Justice.
During the Mink Commission’s investigation into the illegally ordered killing of 17 million Danish mink in 2020, it was discovered that the Prime Minister and three senior officials had their text messages automatically set to delete. This meant that some correspondence from the days around the order to put down the mink has been lost.
Guidelines needed
“The Mink Commission’s approach to text messaging has created a need for clear guidelines for the retention of work – related text messages,” said Justice Minister Mattias Tesfaye.
The Commission’s investigation further revealed that the government does not guarantee the preservation of text messages as it does for emails.
“Unlike e-mails, the storage of SMS messages today does not take place centrally and independently of the individual user, but Statens IT is investigating the possibilities of developing such a solution,” says Tesfaye.
Until then, Justice Department guidelines force ministers, department heads and advisers to keep copies of their text messages even if they change phone or resign. The ministries must comply with the measures no later than 1 October.
The Prime Minister’s reasoning
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at the end of last year that it was her department head, Barbara Bertelsen, who advised her to automatically delete her text messages.
Bertelsen defended her actions by stating that automatic deletion helps ensure security in the event of a phone being lost.
Despite their best efforts, the Defense Intelligence Service and the National Police were not able to recover the text messages that were lost as a result of Bertelsen’s advice.
Source: The Nordic Page