According to the administration arm of the US House of Representatives, the well-known Chinese video app TikTok has been removed from all devices managed by the House, imitating a law that will soon prohibit the app from devices used by the US government.
In a message sent to all lawmakers and staff on Tuesday, the House’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) stated that the app poses a “high risk due to a number of security issues” and that it must be removed from all devices managed by the House.
The new rule follows a series of actions taken by state governments in the United States to prevent TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd, from being used on government devices. Concerning the possibility that the Chinese government could use the app to track Americans and censor content, 19 states have blocked the app at least partially from state-managed devices as of last week.
The app will be banned from federally managed devices as soon as President Joe Biden signs the $1.66 trillion omnibus spending bill into law, which was passed last week to fund the US government until September 30, 2023.
A spokesperson for the Chief Administrative Officer provided the following statement to Reuters on Tuesday: “With the passage of the Omnibus that prohibited 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 set up expressed anybody with TikTok on their gadget would be reached about eliminating it, and future downloads of the application were denied.
A request for comment regarding the new rule did not receive an immediate response from TikTok.
A plan to ban the app across the country has been presented by lawmakers in the United States.
