The White House has directed federal agencies that they have 30 days to remove TikTok from all government-issued devices.
Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in guidance issued Monday that all executive agencies, and those they contract with, must delete any application from TikTok or its parent company, ByteDance, within 30 days of the notice, with few exceptions. Within 90 days, agencies must include in contracts that the short-form video app cannot be used on devices and must cancel any contracts that necessitate the app’s use.
The guidance memorandum from the Biden administration will bring the executive branch and its contractors into compliance with a bill passed at the end of last year requiring federal agencies to ditch TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. It marks the latest effort to clampdown on the app amid renewed security concerns about its US user data and fears that it could find its way to the Chinese government.
The bill swiftly moved through Congress in December, landing in the massive year-end omnibus spending package.
Reuters first reported on the guidance.
US officials have raised concerns that the Chinese government could pressure ByteDance to hand over information collected from users that could be used for intelligence or disinformation purposes. As CNN has previously reported, independent security experts have said that type of access is a possibility, though there has been no reported incident of such access to date.
Brooke Oberwetter, a spokesperson for TikTok, called such a ban “little more than political theater.”
“The ban of TikTok on federal devices passed in December without any deliberation, and unfortunately that approach has served as a blueprint for other world governments,” Oberwetter said in a statement, adding: “We hope that…
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