Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, which news applications staff in his Department are authorised to download and use on their work-provided phones and tablets.

The vast majority of Ministry of Defence (MOD) mobile phones are supplied via the central Defence Fixed Telecommunications Service (DFTS). For standard issue phones, the downloading of external applications is not enabled.

There are a number of trials of Android devices (including tablets and smart phones) underway in the MOD. Users with devices supplied via the DFTS trial can download most applications as required, although security considerations prevent them from downloading some applications. Users with tablets supplied via the central Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) trial can download only a limited set of applications from an internal applications store.

Outside the provisions of the DFTS and DII arrangements, some MOD business areas have purchased devices (mobile phones and tablets) and associated applications independently. However, there is no business requirement to record details centrally; as a result, collated information related to these is not held.