Signal gate peace | Luxembourg word

Given the « Signalgate » scandals In the United States, Pirate MP Sven Clement wanted to Prime Minister Luc Frieden know which paths the government communicate digitally. He pointed out that government members in Luxembourg had also publicly admitted to using WhatsApp, Signal and SMS, « also for government transactions, » said Clement.

This is not only relevant because sensitive information about insecure channels may be passed on. He also refers to the documentation obligation under the Archiving Act. « All documents that arise as part of the government work must be archived, » says Clement. With many of the commercial providers, news deleted after some times. In this context, he also refers the example of the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, whose communication with the head of the vaccine manufacturer Pfizer was no longer found in pandemic.

Not everything documentable

In his answer, Peace assured that sensitive information and the actual government business would not be discussed about commercial messaging services. « When I see, what happened in the WhatsApp groups, then these are organizational and logistical things: » At what time do we meet? Is the Consil at 10 or 9 a.m.?  » « But no files are shared and no relevant information that is necessary for government decisions. »

With regard to the archiving obligation, he wondered whether it is feasible in practice to archive such information as « who can eat with whom ». Email traffic would therefore be archived, but news about messaging services would not.