More fuss about Wallner’s cell phone

Wallner was handed the new mobile phone on May 5. The excitement was great because on May 5 it also became known that the Public Prosecutor’s Office was investigating suspicions against Wallner in relation to the trade union. The fact that Wallner initially wanted to hand over his old mobile phone, but then did not touch it, caused a stir.

Interrogating Wallner, SP’s Member of Parliament Manuela Auer asked why he had not removed the old cell phone. Wallner replied that due to delivery constraints, only a cell phone with significantly less storage capacity was available and not all photos could be transferred to the new cell phone. So the old man is still in his office.

For SPÖ, Wallner’s response to the inquiry was “more than poor”. “Our 15 specific questions were largely sidelined with blank phrases and general statements. An honest answer looks different. Instead, many new questions arise,” Auer says. The answer was only one: “Only the governor decided which data would be deleted.”

File-relevant data is entered, others are deleted

Christophe Bitschee, president of the FPO club, also sought to know from Wallner whether the data had been ordered to be deleted and, if so, what data was removed from his cell phone. In response, Wallner recounts that during the mobile phone replacement, he inquired about how the IT department would deal with the returned IT equipment. He did this because he was sensitive to the current media coverage of misused and stolen mobile phone data and wanted to understand standard procedure. The fact that the corruption prosecutor’s office launched an investigation against him at the same time in connection with the Wirtschaftsbund case has nothing to do with it, Wallner continues.

In its request, Bitschi re-examined whether data needed to conduct official business had been removed from Wallner’s cell phone. Wallner responded that communication practices in the private and professional sphere have changed significantly over the past few decades and that business and private communications are often blurry and therefore a complex of business data, personal data or even sensitive data. A data group. While file-relevant data will be stored, other data will be continually deleted, Wallner said in response to inquiries.

Wallner himself can decide what is erased

Asked about his mobile phone exchange and possible data deletion, Wallner told the OVP corruption investigation committee in Vienna on Wednesday that the exchange was long-planned and was carried out on May 5. He didn’t even give any order to delete the data. According to Wallner, what is filed by service tools is decided by the person concerned himself, what is not relevant to file management can be deleted, which is done on an ongoing basis. This applies to messages as well as emails.

The cell phone must have come to the IT department has already been wiped out

Sabine Scheffeknecht, president of the NEOS Club, addressed her request to IT State Counselor Daniel Zadra (Die Grünen). He explains that on the afternoon of May 5, the head of the IT department was informed that the present cell phone of the governor has been replaced and configured with a new one, and the old one is to be reset. However, the shocking thing is that the old cell phone was not to be reset by the IT department but the Governor’s office requested that the cell phone was already reset to the IT department within a week.

That’s why the IT department does not back up cell phone data. And one tablet was also deleted by Wallner himself and only then handed it over to the IT department for replacement. This data could not even be stored. NEOS talks about processes that are definitely not normal and accuses Wallner of fooling people.

“The thing stinks ten meters against the wind”

For SPÖ, information on how to remove is given in response to Zadra’s inquiry. Accordingly, Wallner did not want his equipment removed by the IT department, but handed over the equipment that had already been removed to this department. “This reinforces the suspicion that something was being hidden here. However, Wallner himself does not say a word about this. The thing smells ten meters against the wind,” Auer says.