TikTok banned from House of Representatives devices - The Record by Recorded Future

TikTok volition beryllium banned from each devices managed by the House of Representatives, the chamber’s Chief Administrative Office announced Tuesday.

The agency’s Office of Cybersecurity has “deemed The TikTok mobile exertion to beryllium a precocious hazard to users owed to a fig of information risks,” the CAO said successful an email.

Staffers “are NOT allowed to download the TikTok app connected immoderate House mobile devices” and the app is “NOT allowed connected House mobile devices,” the connection stated.

“If you person the TikTok app connected your House mobile device, you volition beryllium contacted to region it,” the email warned.

Earlier this twelvemonth the CAO warned that TikTok posed a hazard connected Capitol Hill due to the fact that it “actively harvests” biometric information and different delicate idiosyncratic information. TikTok refuted the claims, penning successful a effect missive that the advisory contained “factual inaccuracies.”

The institution did not instantly respond to a petition for remark astir the caller CAO memo.

The $1.7 trillion spending measure that Congress approved past week bans TikTok from each authorities devices successful the look of increasing interest among policymakers astir the Chinese-owned video app. The authorities has yet to beryllium signed into instrumentality by President Joe Biden. 

Another bipartisan bill, introduced successful Congress earlier this month, would prohibition the app for everyone successful the U.S. More than a twelve states person banned TikTok connected government-issued devices successful caller weeks.

Federal officials person agelong expressed fears that the fashionable app could beryllium utilized to spy connected Americans, oregon hoover up their data, and utilized by Beijing to manipulate radical via its video algorithm.

FBI Director Christopher Wray earlier this period said the Chinese authorities could usage TikTok for “influence operations” oregon to compromise devices.

“All of these things are successful the hands of a authorities that doesn’t stock our values, and that has a ngo that’s precise overmuch astatine likelihood with what’s successful the champion interests of the United States. That should interest us,” Wray said during an lawsuit astatine the University of Michigan.