Source: European Parliament
The High Representative/Vice-President, Members of her Cabinet and members of staff may use instant messaging tools on their corporate devices for informal communication purposes.
A data protection impact assessment is required only if there is a high risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons in accordance with Article 39(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725[1]. This is not the case when Signal is used, given that the scope of personal information shared via Signal is limited.
The European External Action Service and the Commission have already issued guidelines on the use of instant messaging and group chat tools.
Use of publicly available non-corporate tools is limited to the exceptional cases when corporate solutions cannot be used. The guidelines stipulate that only non-confidential information should be shared and discussed when using, for example, Signal.
- [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2018/1725/oj/eng.