Where is Boris's old mobile phone?

I suggest he tries a passcode beginning Bo and ending in ks.

Next excuse? One of his innumerable children dropped it in the loo.

Apparently the phone isn’t lost, it’s with his lawyers. He is saying he can’t remember the password, and if it’s entered incorrectly all the messages on WhatsApp will be lost.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66165001

Or they could take it to the bloke on the market who will unlock it and give it a new screen for fifty quid…

All the technical savvy available in this country and beyond yet our clever, brilliant Boris can’t access it. Nor it seems can anyone else. Perhaps Scotland Yard can help?

Beyond ridiculous.

The enquiry is trying to determine his competence and integrity as PM. He’s forgotten his passcode. I think the enquiry has arrived at its conclusion.

Which in essence means that any data on the 'phone is now most certainly lost. I believe the only way to unlock a device is to restore it to the factory settings which of course wipes the stored data...

A friend of mine - ex GCHQ employee- says it's technically possible to access the WhatsApp messages without the code. However, the government will have to justify the need to do this. My friend retired from GCHQ a long time ago, so I'm not sure about the accuracy of his assessment. Also I believe there would have to be a really pressing need to break into his 'phone. We might consider it important enough, but I'm not sure whether the needs of the enquiry team will meet the required 'criteria'.

Boris Johnson is adept at ducking-and-diving isn't he?

Yes, and some still think he's the bee's knees. Delay delay hope for the best it might just all go away and anyway he's far Too Important to be subject to normal laws...

This

Dickens

Which in essence means that any data on the 'phone is now most certainly lost. I believe the only way to unlock a device is to restore it to the factory settings which of course wipes the stored data...

A friend of mine - ex GCHQ employee- says it's technically possible to access the WhatsApp messages without the code. However, the government will have to justify the need to do this. My friend retired from GCHQ a long time ago, so I'm not sure about the accuracy of his assessment. Also I believe there would have to be a really pressing need to break into his 'phone. We might consider it important enough, but I'm not sure whether the needs of the enquiry team will meet the required 'criteria'.

Boris Johnson is adept at ducking-and-diving isn't he?

The police can access all kinds of information from mobile phones in the event of cases like murder etc, so no-one can convince me that the government, with all the resources at its disposal, could not do the same.

It looks as though they are nearly there now.
The statement says that the technicians were not willing to try a code until certain it was the right one. Let’s hope this works.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66199658

Apparent,y, if they use the wrong code, it wipes out stuff like WhatsApp...which is convenient.🙄

Makes you wonder what's on that phone.😗

Entering the wrong log in code won’t reset the phone, if the technicians get it they will open it

We might consider it important enough, but I'm not sure whether the needs of the enquiry team will meet the required 'criteria'.

As I understood it, Dickens, the messages cover the early stages of the pandemic, possibly the first year, so will be extremely pertinent to the needs of the enquiry team.

MaizieD

^We might consider it important enough, but I'm not sure whether the needs of the enquiry team will meet the required 'criteria'.^

As I understood it, Dickens, the messages cover the early stages of the pandemic, possibly the first year, so will be extremely pertinent to the needs of the enquiry team.

Oh, I thought it might be regarded as, you know, "not quite pertinent" because the messages were in the early stages when, ostensibly, so little was known or understood about this particular strain of virus - I see your point though. Johnson was 'tardy' in the early stages and, although his presence at the COBRA meetings wasn't essential, I think missing 5 of them (I believe that's the number) does show a distinct lack of concern and involvement.

Of course, there's no guarantee that the public will get to know what was in those messages anyway, and what little we are allowed to know might be well redacted.

If some of the observations he made in private, or in front of a limited audience that were later leaked out are actually true his attitude was cavalier, to say the least. And that might well be reflected in those WA messages.

vegansrock

The enquiry is trying to determine his competence and integrity as PM. He’s forgotten his passcode. I think the enquiry has arrived at its conclusion.

Just this!

Mine are all in a neat pile in my bedside table, maybe he should check his

Usually, with a government issued phone, passwords are kept by others, because it's for official stuff.

This doesn't seem to have happened though.🙄

Correct me if I'm wrong but is it possible that BJ has deleted all the messages anyway so that if anyone tries the wrong password, he can claim it wasn't him who deleted them? I'd be amazed if that phone still contains anything that could damage him.

Presumably though, all the people he WhatsApped would still have his messages on their phones?

I've read that if BoJo's Whatsapp messages have been backed up in the cloud the encrytion will be gone and it wouldn't matter if he had tried to delete the messages on the phone if they are still in the cloud.

But I'm no expert. I'm not very optimistic about them being recovered and the best hope may be for them to be recovered though the phones of other contacts to whom he sent Whatsapp messages in early 2020 - eg Matt Hancock, Simon Case and his chums who may have recommended further chums for quick PPE contracts.

I also hope the phone gives his locations so they can see where he was when missing the 5 early Cobra meetings.

IMHO Government Ministers should not be able to use Whatsapp or any other encrypted messaging system for Government business as it leaves them unacccountable.