Embattled MP William Wragg accidentally allowed his WiFi password to be made public when he was photographed for a newspaper.
The now-independent politician, who resigned the Conservative whip on Tuesday after admitting giving colleagues’ phone numbers to a suspected scammer, posed for a photo published in The Observer – with a note of the password scribbled on Commons-headed notepaper and pinned to a board behind him.
Viewers were able to easily read the password over his shoulder in the picture.
It was not immediately clear when the photograph was taken, but social media users said Mr Wragg should immediately change the password.
The MP for Hazel Grove in Greater Manchester admitted last week that he had given colleagues’ phone numbers to someone on a dating app because he feared intimate images of himself would be leaked after he was targeted in the parliamentary “sexting” scam.
Other MPs, political journalists and parliamentary staffers also received late-night texts from an unknown sender, known as “Charlie”, who claimed to have met them years ago in a bar.
The sender sent them explicit images and asked them to reciprocate. Many were said to have blocked the sender but two MPs reportedly responded with an explicit image of themselves.
Police and parliamentary authorities are investigating.
Mr Wragg, 36, stepped back from his roles as vice-chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, and chair of the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee, when the scam became public.
He told The Times: “They had compromising things on me. They wouldn’t leave me alone. They would ask for people. I gave them some numbers, not all of them. I told him to stop. He’s manipulated me and now I’ve hurt other people.
“I’ve hurt people by being weak. I was scared. I’m mortified. I’m so sorry that my weakness has caused other people hurt.”
When political journalist Ava Santina highlighted on social media the photo with the password on show, users expressed despair at the lack of security of the photo and mocked the password for being too easily guessable.
