US House bans TikTok on mobiles over national security concerns

Washington, December 29

Chinese short-form video making app TikTok has been banned on mobile devices issued by the US House of Representatives.

The House ordered staff to delete TikTok from any House-issued mobile phones, according to an internal memo seen by the NBC News.

“House staff are NOT allowed to download the TikTok app on any House mobile devices. If you have the TikTok app on your House mobile device, you will be contacted to remove it,” read the memo.

Local administrations in 19 US states have already banned TikTok on government-issued devices.

TikTok spokesperson said the move was a “political signal rather than a practical solution for security concerns.”

TikTok is currently negotiating a deal with the US Justice Department to resolve national security concerns. Last week, reports surfaced that China-based ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, accessed data of at least two US journalists and a “small number” of other people connected to them.

In October, TikTok denied that it used specific location data to track certain US individuals, pushing back against a Forbes report that alleged the app was planning on carrying out such monitoring.

In June, TikTok said it started routing US user data through Oracle to appease concerns that China-based employees could access US information. IANS