Should MPs be using social media for private messaging?

Probably not, unless they want to be overheard!

If we needed a reminder not to use social media for private conversations that we wish to remain private, here’s yet another:http://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-urges-mps-to-back-may-in-whatsapp-message-10912405

WhatsApp messages sent by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to a closed group have been published. The messages in which Boris urges top Tory MPs to back Theresa May have presumably been leaked to the press by an insider, and are in all likelihood a put up job. However, they could have been hacked, and it does beg the question; Should our elected officials be using social media for government business?

As we have documented on various occasions, WhatsApp and other social media platforms are not totally secure. They can be hacked if your mobile phone number is compromised, which is relatively easy to do with an IMSI catcher or by exploiting vulnerabilities in the SS7 protocol that enables mobiles to talk to other networks.

As well as the concerns that conversations can be listened in to, users of social media platforms also need to be conscious of how their location data can be exploited.  This is particularly pertinent for high profile people or where national security could be compromised.

There is now a solution where MPs and government employees can avoid all of these issues!

By using a fully secure communications platform, they get all the usability of WhatsApp and similar messaging apps, but all their data and meta data is as secure as possible.