The White House has given the US federal agencies a 30-day deadline to guarantee that no government devices or systems contain the Chinese app TikTok.
All government agencies were instructed by Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young in a guidance memo to remove TikTok from phones and systems and block internet traffic going to the company in order to protect US data. The memo was obtained by Reuters.
A measure that would grant President Joe Biden the ability to block TikTok from all US devices will be put to a vote by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.
The decree was issued almost exactly a year after the Biden administration was given 60 days to enact a ban on federal employees using the Chinese-owned video-sharing app on government-issued devices.
The vote was held in response to security worries expressed by US senators that Beijing is spying on Americans using Chinese corporations.
“My bill empowers the administration to ban TikTok or any software applications that threaten U.S. national security,” Representative Mike McCaul, the committee chair, said.
“Anyone with TikTok downloaded on their device has given the (Chinese Communist Party) a backdoor to all their personal information. It’s a spy balloon into your their phone.”
TikTok had already been blocked on several government devices
Before the vote, TikTok had already been blocked on several government devices. The White House, the Defense Department, the Homeland Security Department, and the State Department are among them.
The US is the most recent country to forbid TikTok from being put on official equipment. More than half of the US states, the EU, Taiwan, Canada, and the EU had already taken the essential steps in this regard.
After the 2020 Galwan Valley battles, where Indian and Chinese forces engaged in combat in the Himalayan border region of Ladakh, at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed, while Beijing withheld information on the number of casualties on its side. India, however, went a step further and outlawed the video-sharing app for commercial purposes.