TikTok banned on devices issued by US House of Representatives - The Guardian

TikTok has been banned from immoderate devices issued by the US House of Representatives, arsenic governmental unit continues to physique connected the Chinese-owned societal video app.

The bid to delete the app was issued by Catherine Szpindor, the main administrative serviceman of the House, whose bureau had warned successful August that the app represented a “high hazard to users”.

According to a memo obtained by NBC News, each lawmakers and staffers with House-issued mobile phones person been ordered to region TikTok by Szpindor.

“House unit are NOT allowed to download the TikTok app connected immoderate House mobile devices,” NBC quoted the memo arsenic saying. “If you person the TikTok app connected your House mobile device, you volition beryllium contacted to region it.”

In August the House’s CAO issued a “cyber advisory” labelling TikTok a high-risk app owed to its “lack of transparency successful however it protects lawsuit data”. It said TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, “actively harvests contented for identifiable data” and stores immoderate idiosyncratic information successful China. TikTok says its information is not held successful China, but successful the US and Singapore.

The CAO move, besides reported by Reuters, comes amid aggregate attempts to restrict the usage of TikTok by authorities and authorities employees.

Last week Congress passed a $1.7tn spending bill, which includes a proviso banning TikTok from authorities devices. The prohibition volition instrumentality effect erstwhile President Joe Biden signs the authorities into law. According to Reuters, astatine slightest 19 US states person partially blocked the app from state-managed devices implicit information concerns. In a connection released aft the Congress ban, TikTok said the determination was a “political motion that volition bash thing to beforehand nationalist information interests”.

This period US legislator Marco Rubio, a erstwhile Republican statesmanlike contender, unveiled a legislative connection to prohibition TikTok from the US entirely. Rubio said it was clip to “ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good”.

Biden has revoked statesmanlike orders targeting TikTok issued by his predecessor, Donald Trump, which included requiring TikTok to merchantability its US business. However, the US Committee connected Foreign Investment, which scrutinises concern deals with non-US companies, is besides conducting a information reappraisal of TikTok. According to a caller Reuters report, TikTok is offering to run much of its US concern astatine arm’s magnitude and taxable it to extracurricular scrutiny.

The bureau of the House’s main administrative serviceman and TikTok person been approached for comment.