Tiktok banned on US government devices, citing ‘high risk’
TikTok has been banned from all US House of Representatives-managed devices in line with an imminent law banning the app from US government devices.
The app is considered ‘high risk due to a number of security issues’, the House’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) said in a message sent to all lawmakers and staff on Tuesday, and must be deleted from all devices managed by the House.
The new rule follows a series of moves by US state governments to ban Chinese-owned TikTok from government devices.
As of last week, 19 states in the US have at least partially blocked the app from state-managed devices over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app to track Americans and censor content.
The $1.66 trillion omnibus spending bill, passed last week to fund the US government through to 30 September 2023, includes a provision to ban the app on federally managed devices and will take effect once President Joe Biden signs the legislation into law.
‘With the passage of the Omnibus that banned TikTok on executive branch devices, the CAO worked with the Committee on House Administration to implement a similar policy for the House,’ a spokesperson for the Chief Administrative Officer told Reuters on Tuesday.
The message to staff said anyone with TikTok on their device would be contacted about removing it, and future downloads of the app were prohibited.
This month, US lawmakers announced plans to implement a nationwide ban on the video-sharing app, amid fears that it could be used to spy on Americans and censor content.
To make matters worse, just last week, ByteDance admitted that TikTok staff had accessed the private data of two journalists as part of a company ‘investigation’.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump attempted to block the app’s use in the United States but lost a series of court battles over the measure.
It’s not the first time the Chinese app has faced bans by governments due to its links to Beijing.
The UK parliament’s TikTok account was shut down in August after MPs raised concerns about the social media firm’s links to China.
In 2020, India banned TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps as tensions erupted at the border.
Metro.co.uk has reached out to TikTok for comment.