The WhatsApp messages contained therein are used to investigate how the UK is handling the coronavirus outbreak
On June 1, the UK government was due to turn over all WhatsApp messages written or received by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson between January 2020 and February 2022 to the Commission of Inquiry investigating Britain’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak. The government had declined to do so on the grounds that it would share “entirely irrelevant” information. But according to an article published today in the Times, there is another reason: Johnson forgot the iPhone unlock code he used at the time, and as a result the phone is now inaccessible.
It’s not the first time newspapers have taken issue with Johnson’s phone: in April 2021, gossip newsletter Popbitch had found out and announced that the then-Prime Minister’s personal phone number had been available for 15 years, according to a press release uploaded online in 2006. That was exactly why Johnson had switched phones. The old one had been turned off and put aside. His lawyers are now keeping it, but as the former prime minister is not “100 per cent sure” he remembers the phone’s unlock code, he is unable to provide the requested information to the commission of inquiry.
According to the Times (the report was not denied by a Johnson spokesman Politico spoke to), entering the wrong unlock code into the phone risks automatically erasing some content since the phone’s security systems are activated they are stiffer than regular iPhones. Johnson has asked government cybersecurity experts to help him access the smartphone’s contents while government officials search the prime minister’s office for records of the code. His spokesman reiterated that the former prime minister wanted to cooperate in the investigation.
The government had previously appealed the commission’s request but was unsuccessful and should have handed over Johnson’s WhatsApp messages by July 10, according to a court ruling.
The commission of inquiry into dealing with the coronavirus epidemic was set up by Johnson himself in May 2021. His government had been heavily criticized for the number of people who had died from COVID-19, which was the highest in Europe, prompting Johnson after some hesitation to request an inquiry into the matter.
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