All US House staff members told to remove TikTok from devices

Robert Besser
02 Jan 2023, 04:07 GMT+10

Chinese video app TikTok has been banned from all House of Representatives-managed devices, following a new law that will ban the app from US government devices
In a message sent to all lawmakers and staff this week, the House's Chief Administrative Officer said the app is "high risk due to a number of security issues"
As of last week, 19 states have also partially blocked the app from state-managed devices, due to concerns that the Chinese government could use it to track Americans and censor content

WASHINGTON D.C.: According to the US House of Representative's administrative arm, popular Chinese video app TikTok has been banned from all House of Representatives-managed devices, following a new law that will ban the app from US government devices.

In a message sent to all lawmakers and staff this week, the House's Chief Administrative Officer said the app is "high risk due to a number of security issues," and must be deleted from all devices managed by the House.

As of last week, 19 states have also partially blocked the app, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, from state-managed devices, due to 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 includes a provision to ban the app on federally managed devices, and will take effect after being signed into law by President Joe Biden.

Also this week, a spokesperson for the Chief Administrative Officer told Reuters, "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."

The message to the Congressional staff stressed that employees with TikTok on their devices would be contacted about removing it, and future downloads of the app were banned.

US lawmakers have drafted a proposal to ban TikTok nationwide.