EU admits existence of signal group chat of EU foreign ministers
It's not just in the USA that government officials use signals to contact each other; it's apparently also common in the EU. The content should remain secret.
(Image: Henk Vrieselaar/Shutterstock.com)
EU foreign ministers are also exchanging information in a group chat on Signal, where they send selfies, among other things. The European Union confirmed this to the Dutch investigative platform Follow the Money (FTM); the group was first made public last month by Austria's new Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger. According to FTM, the European External Action Service (EEAS) has admitted the existence of the group, but has refused to disclose its content. Otherwise, trust and effectiveness would be disrupted. The admission comes weeks after a group chat involving high-ranking representatives of the US government became public because a journalist was added mistakenly.
Content should remain under lock and key
In an interview with Der Standard on March 21, Meinl-Reisinger (NEOS) said: “There is a signal group of foreign ministers, where my predecessor Alexander Schallenberg kindly introduced me with a joint selfie.” According to this, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas is responsible. If this had been published just a few days later, it would probably have received much more attention because on March 24, The Atlantic published the article on the US government's group chat in which secret information on US military strikes was exchanged. However, FTM then filed freedom of information request to obtain the aforementioned selfie.
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As the portal now writes, the EEAS has now found that photo and thus admitted that the group exists, that EU authorities have access and that the selfie was shared there. However, it would not be passed on. The magazine has lodged an appeal against this and recalls that important decisions have long been made in the European Union about commercially available communication services, such as text messages from heads of government like German Chancellor Angela Merkel. However, the EU has “almost never acknowledged” their existence and not a single one of these sometimes immensely important messages has been made public. Proceedings regarding a text message from EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are ongoing before the ECJ.
Different risks from commercial messengers
The crypto messenger Signal is considered comparatively secure, but originates from the USA. The use of such commercially available applications by ministers therefore also entails potential security risks. Following the revelations of recent weeks, the interest of secret services in the messenger is likely to have increased once again. In addition, you can set Signal to automatically delete messages after a certain time, which prevents them from being archived. heise online asked the Federal Foreign Office whether there are any special security measures for using the app and what information is shared via it. So far, there has been no answer.
Meanwhile, the fact that, according to another minister from Austria, there is also at least one group on WhatsApp in which ministers from the EU exchange information is likely to come into focus. On March 14, Family Minister Claudia Plakolm (ÖVP) also told Der Standard: “We have a WhatsApp group of EU ministers, and in it, I have passed on information on how Austria wants to stop family reunification. This has met with great interest.” A freedom of information request on this news is currently underway via the FragDenStaat portal.
(mho)
