Penny Mordaunt Claims Boris Johnson's COVID WhatsApp Messages Went Missing

Penny Mordaunt, a government minister, reported that her WhatsApp conversations with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 2018 to 2020 are missing.

Johnson acknowledged to the Covid inquiry that he lost around 5,000 messages and insists he has provided all relevant communications. The issue of vanishing messages is not unique to Mordaunt, as other politicians, including current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, faced similar problems.

Mordaunt revealed in her statement that no messages could be found between her and Johnson during the stated period. She attempted 14 times to discuss the issue with Johnson's chief of staff to no avail and was informed that retrieving messages from her phone would be excessively expensive since the device was personally hers.

It is noted that WhatsApp messages are saved on the devices of each participant and can only be deleted by the users, except for the first 48 hours when they can also be deleted for everyone. Johnson’s actions, including a factory reset and number change, would not affect Mordaunt's WhatsApp record.

WhatsApp servers do not store messages; they are only stored on individual devices or backed up on Apple or Google servers with end-to-end encryption, ensuring that only the communicating parties can access them. A WhatsApp server outage wouldn't delete existing messages, as they do not depend on the servers after being sent.