Debate contribution: COVID-19 Inquiry: WhatsApp Messages
Debate contribution by Ms Michelle O'Neill on .
- MLA
- Ms Michelle O'Neill
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 19 February 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- COVID-19 Inquiry: WhatsApp Messages
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4223090
Read the official Assembly record
Text
In August 2023, TEO notified the module 2C inquiry team of a potential loss of data from Civil Service mobile devices supplied to Ministers and spads that may be relevant to the terms of reference of the public inquiry. The group head of NICS internal audit service was commissioned to undertake a fact-finding investigation into how some mobile devices returned by Ministers and spads came to be reset. The report, dated 7 December 2023, was shared with the module 2C inquiry legal team on 8 December. The terms of reference of the NICS mobile device fact-finding investigation stated that, if analysis of the mobile devices by an IT specialist was required to determine the status of each device and retrieve information where possible, that would be undertaken as a separate exercise. On 20 December 2023, the head of the Civil Service commissioned an independent technical analysis of devices that had been allocated to former Ministers and special advisers in NICS. The analysis of devices is ongoing, and the COVID inquiry will be advised of the outcome of that exercise.
179 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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