In May, we found out that our lovely Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, deleted texts on his old phone for years to free up storage space. Now, it was disclosed that he, and his office, violated the Archives Act.
After Rutte’s texting scandal became public, the Government Information and Heritage Inspectorate started an investigation.
From this, the Inspectorate concluded that Rutte’s ministry failed to act in accordance with the archive law, and properly delete and store texts on his ancient Nokia. 🤦
READ MORE | Mark Rutte becomes longest-serving Dutch prime minister (and we’re not sure that’s a good thing)
It’s also still unknown whether the forever-gone messages held essential information about political decisions.
Rutte and his ministry acted in defence
During the investigation, Rutte said that he simply deleted those messages to prevent his Nokia from becoming slow and cluttered. 📱
In his defence, any text that he deemed important, he always forwarded to officials before archiving. And according to the Inspectorate, this was indeed the case.
Nevertheless, many parties rebuked Rutte for his rather special way of choosing which texts should be stored, and which should be archived. 🤔
When you forward chat messages, it’s no longer possible to see when the message was received. When screenshots are taken, information can be lost, writes RTL Nieuws.
That being said, Rutte and his ministry should have thought twice before sticking with their archiving method. They need to find a more agreeable way to do this that won’t breach the Archives Act.
What do you think about Rutte’s texting scandal? Tell us in the comments below! 👇
