On 1 June, the UK government was due to hand over to the commission of inquiry investigating Britain’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak all WhatsApp messages that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote or received between January 2020 and 2020. February 2022. The government had refused to do so, arguing that it would have shared “totally irrelevant” information, but according to an article of the Times released today there would be another reason: Johnson forgot the iPhone unlock code he was using at the time and for this reason the phone is now inaccessible.
It’s not the first time newspapers have covered Johnson’s phone: in April 2021 the gossip newsletter Popbitch he had discovered and disclosed that the then prime minister’s personal telephone number had been available on the internet for 15 years, in a 2006 press release uploaded online. Precisely for this reason Johnson had changed phones. The old one had been turned off and set aside. Now his lawyers are keeping it, but since the former prime minister is not “100 percent sure” that he remembers the unlock code for the telephone, he cannot get the requested information to the commission of inquiry.
According to the Times (The report has not been denied by a Johnson spokesperson with whom he spoke Politico) there is a risk that entering an incorrect unlock code into the phone will automatically erase part of its contents because the security systems set on the phone they are stiffer than those found on normal iPhones. Johnson has asked government cybersecurity experts to help him access the contents of the smartphone, while government officials are looking for any records of the code in the prime minister’s office. His spokesman reiterated that the former prime minister wants to collaborate with the investigation.
The government had previously appealed against the commission’s request, but was unsuccessful and according to a court ruling it should have handed over Johnson’s WhatsApp messages by 10 July.
The commission of inquiry into the handling of the coronavirus epidemic had been set up by Johnson himself in May 2021. His government had been much criticized for the number of people who died from COVID-19, which had been the highest in Europe, which is why, after hesitating for some time, Johnson had asked for an investigation into the matter.