22 October 2023 , 12:55
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Rishi Sunak’s mobile phone number has been published online in a fresh security blunder. Pranksters released a tape of them calling the PM’s personal mobile and getting through to his answerphone message.
The number called was the one used by Mr Sunak during his time as Chancellor and last summer’s Tory leadership race. According to the Sun, he was given a separate number when he became PM a year ago, although the old one still appears to be in operation.
Boris Johnson was forced to change his mobile number in April 2021 when he was PM after it emerged that it had been available online for the last 15 years. A contact number for him was listed on the bottom of a press release when he was a shadow minister in 2006. The number stopped working shortly after it was revealed. The phone was confiscated by officials over fears of a potential hack attack from hostile states.
Last year it emerged that Liz Truss’s mobile phone was hacked when she was a candidate in the Tory leadership race. She was Foreign Secretary at the time.
Mr Sunak last month said he could not hand over WhatsApp messages from during the pandemic because he had not backed them up before switching phones. In a statement to the Covid Inquiry, he said: “Having changed my phone a number of times over the last three years, I do not have access to the WhatsApp messages that I sent or received during the relevant time, and neither were the messages backed up.”
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Downing Street refused to comment on the latest security breach. The PM’s spokeswoman said: “We do not comment on security matters.”