The order to delete the app was issued by Catherine Szpindor, the chief administrative officer of the House, whose office warned in August that the app represented a “high risk to users” citing a “number of security concerns.”

The new ban follows a series of moves by U.S. state governments to remove TikTok, developed by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, from government devices, amid fears that collected data could allow the Chinese government to spy on Americans, or that the app’s algorithm could influence and censor what users watch on the app.

As of last week, 19 states — including Texas, Georgia, Maryland, South Dakota, South Carolina and Nebraska — had at least partially blocked the app from state-managed devices over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app to track Americans and censor content. The U.S. military also banned its service-members from using TikTok on government devices, fearing the app could potentially expose personal data to “unwanted actors.”

In response to the spending bill, TikTok said the move was a “political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests.” TikTok did not immediately return TechCrunch’s request for comment.

There are also parallel efforts to ban TikTok from consumer devices across the United States.

Earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) also proposed legislation that would ban TikTok nationally. When introducing the bipartisan bill, Rubio said that the app allows the Chinese government “a unique ability to monitor more than 1 billion users worldwide, including nearly two-thirds of American teenagers.”

US House bans TikTok on lawmakers’ official phones by Carly Page originally published on TechCrunch

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