The Canadian government is basing its approach to officials’ private text messages on the honour system.
A newly released document shows the department grappled with an unforeseen technological hurdle that could have scuttled the whole plan.
A note attached to a December 2014 memo for Treasury Board Secretary Yaprak Baltacioglu states:
“Some models of the new generation BlackBerry 10 devices  do not permit a user to forward PIN-to-PIN messages to email accounts, this making it difficult to retain such messages, or to capture them for response to an (access-to-information) request,â€Â
PINs, or personal identification numbers, are unique IDs that can be used to send secure messages to other BlackBerry users.
That limitation put Treasury Board  which is responsible for coming up with information technology and access-to-information rules for all government departments  in a bit of a bind.
BlackBerry came up with a few work-arounds. Bureaucrats could cut and paste their PIN messages  including the “to,†“from,†“date,†“time†and “subject†fields  into an email, which they would then send to themselves.
They also had the option of taking screen shots of their PINs, or they could simply write out a copy of their message and store it away in an email message or a Word document.
Treasury Board suggested ditching PINs altogether.
“Please note that it is a recommended best practice to discontinue the use of PIN-to-PIN messaging and use BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) capability instead, as BBM messages can be easily forwarded to a government of Canada email address,â€Â
The Canadian Press obtained the document under the Access to Information Act.
