NatWest blocks bevy of apps in clampdown on unmonitorable comms

Good start Natwest

Now it should be enforced across all banking by the regulators, no disappearing evidence please.

BUT more importantly use of disappearing messages should be banned in any Government role including ALL MPs with the crime of TREASON attached to breaching this. It is unbelievable that the criminal just threw away shedloads of evidence with no repercussion

Vaguely surprised …

… that Apple's Messages isn't on the list. Maybe its shortest auto-delete of 30 days is considered acceptable. Or maybe NatWest uses MDM to remove the app from managed devices (something Apple doesn't allow mortals to do) — although that would crock SMSs as well.

The UK government shoud do this for all its comms.

Only now?

I did at a stint in a New York bank and the first morning was spent having "thou shalt only use authorised messaging apps on pain of pain" rammed down your throat by someone from Sopranos central casting... and that was over 10 years ago. Can't believe it's taken this long for other banks to catch up

Been a couple of years since I left NatWest but I seem to recall all social media and messaging apps were banned and blocked via the desktop proxies unless you had a very, very, strong business requirement. Can't quite remember how mobiles were protected but there was MDM and controls enforced so company apps and non company apps couldn't share information (to the extent you had to use a company app to take photos if you wanted to use them in another company app.) So not quite sure what's changed since then other than re-enforcing the bans.

I'm amazed

We get audited on a regular basis by most of the high street banks as we supply stuff to them. The amount of time they spend on DLP, I'm amazed they allow free reign up until now.

Being banned from doing something...

..doesn't actually stop anyone from doing it.

Those vanishing messages at the Covid inquiry could have been reconstructed from the devices of the other parties, but no attempt was made. It was just a way of getting away with stuff as some of the messages would have been politically awkward if they were in the public domain. UK media coverage is easy enough to rig with a D Notice. For inquiries, you need to lose your phone or autodelete.

Curiouser and Curiouser...

At work my employer does network based backups of my employer issued laptop.

At work, I do regular backups of my employer issued laptop too.

And my employer is doing regular system-wide backups which are sent to Iron Mountain.

So...here's my question: Who says that messages created by the listed apps "can never be retrieved after X days"????

Sounds very unlikely to me.....

Golf Courses

Will they also be banning off-the-record business chats on the golf course?