Perth and Kinross Council has been criticised for disabling social media functions on new smartphones issued to its councillors.
The new Microsoft devices were given to 14 elected members as part of a phones upgrade being rolled out over the next 18 months.
Councillors said Twitter, Facebook and other applications including a specialist selfie app have been temporarily blocked.
Council leader Ian Miller described the set-up as “frustrating”.
A spokeswoman for the local authority explained that full access would be available to councillors soon.
“Support for existing BlackBerry devices is being withdrawn by the manufacturer from March 2017,” she said.
“As a result, Perth and Kinross Council is undertaking a phased upgrade of all existing BlackBerrys to new Windows mobiles as these offer the council best value and greatest integration with the council’s existing IT infrastructure.”
She said 14 councillors, whose mobile contracts were due for renewal, have been issued with new Windows Lumia 640 LTE models.
“Initially these devices allow them to securely access their council email, as well as accessing calendars, reading and editing documents and providing mobile phone and texting services,” she added.
“Additional mobile phone features are currently being developed and will provide functionality such as secure internet and intranet access, as well as access to an extended range of mobile phone apps.”
Councillor Peter Barrett raised the issued at a meeting of the strategic, policy and resources committee.
“They are great phones, but they’ve got 90% functionality switched off,” he said.
“They’ve even disabled the selfie setting.
“There’s no way of finding news online and if we wanted to highlight the work of the council there’s no way of doing it.”