Last month, security experts warned that the Zoom video-conferencing software used by Cabinet ministers might not be the most secure way to discuss important business. It appears though that it was Fleet Street that should have been preparing for unwelcome intruders.
Today, the Independent published a piece online alleging that a Financial Times media reporter eavesdropped on internal Zoom meetings at the Independent and Evening Standard to obtain details of their moves to furlough staff, along with other commercially-sensitive information.
According to the Indy, an account, registered to the FT reporter Mark Di Stefano’s email, accessed a private video call for Independent staff on Thursday. The paper says that the intruder was rumbled though, when Di Stefano’s name flashed up on screen during the call. After leaving the Zoom meeting after 16 seconds, an anonymous user then joined the call using a phone number also linked to Di Stefano. The same number was also used to access an Evening Standard Zoom meeting on 1 April.
Now it appears that both the Indy and Standard want answers from the FT. The Indy commenced hostilities by noting in its piece that the FT’s code of conduct states that: ‘The press must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by… intercepting private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails.’
While former Chancellor and Standard editor George Osborne fired his own shot across the bow this afternoon:
Now, it’s up to the FT to decide how to respond. Mr S notes though that an FT editorial in 2012, after the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, lamented that:
‘Most of the abuses that marked the phone-hacking scandal – the interception of messages, bribing of the police, harassment, trespass and so on – were already offences. The problem was not the lack of laws; it was that they were not enforced.’
Watch this space…
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