Senior Civil Servants' mobile devices and apps: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/02149
Date received: 26 September 2017
Date responded: 16 November 2017

Information requested

You asked for:

1. How many mobile devices have been issued to Scottish Government ministers and senior civil servants, at Senior Civil Service (SCS) Grade 2 and above and are currently in regular use?

2. Please provide a list of all the apps installed on these Scottish Government issued mobile phones identified above, along with details of how many times each app has been installed in total.

3. Please provide details of any group messenger apps (e.g WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Threema etc etc - there are others available too.) that are in use and the name and membership of any message groups that are used by staff and ministers to conduct government business.

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested.

REQUEST 1

The number of mobile phones in currently in use is 45. The number of tablet devices in currently use is 29. These figures include mobile phones used by staff from the following Scottish Government Agencies:

• Transport Scotland
• Food Standards Scotland

REQUEST 2

The Scottish Government has a mixed estate of COBO (Corporate Owned, Business Only) and COPE (Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled) mobile phones.

No apps are permitted on COBO devices.

COPE devices require the following apps:

• BlackBerry UEM
• BlackBerry Work
• BlackBerry Docs to Go
• BlackBerry Access
• BlackBerry Notes
• BlackBerry Tasks
• Sophos Mobile Security

With the exception of Notes and Tasks the above listed are apps are mandatory to meet SG compliance standards and installed on 13 devices.

Whilst our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some the information you have requested. This information is not available as personally enabled apps are not managed by the Scottish Government.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

REQUEST 3

Whilst our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some the information you have requested. This information is not available as personally enabled apps are not managed by the Scottish Government.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

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