WASHINGTON: US lawmakers to include proposal to ban federal government employees from using Chinese app ICT Tac on government-owned devices in a key spending bill, sources told Reuters on Monday.
The Senate voted last week on a bill sponsored by the Republican senator Josh Haley to ban federal employees from using the ByteDance-owned short video app on government-owned devices. It was the latest move by US lawmakers to crack down on Chinese companies amid national security fears.
The ban is expected to be included in a massive omnibus measure to fund US government operations that is expected to be voted on this week, the sources said.
Last week’s proposal won the support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.
TikTok said the concerns were largely fueled by misinformation. The legislation would not impact the more than 100 million Americans who use TikTok on private or company-owned devices.
Many federal agencies, including the White House and the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and State, already ban TikTok from government-owned devices.
Also on Monday, state agencies in Louisiana and West Virginia became the latest to ban the use of TikTok on government devices, fearing China could use it to track Americans and censor content.
Some 19 of the 50 US states have now at least partially blocked government computer access to TikTok. Most of the restrictions have come in the past two weeks.
In 2020, then-Republican President Donald Trump tried to block new users from downloading TikTok and ban other transactions that would have effectively blocked use of the app in the United States, but lost a series of court battles.
The US government’s Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS), a national security body, has been seeking for months to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of American users of TikTok, but it seems that no agreement will not be concluded before the end of the year. .
The Senate voted last week on a bill sponsored by the Republican senator Josh Haley to ban federal employees from using the ByteDance-owned short video app on government-owned devices. It was the latest move by US lawmakers to crack down on Chinese companies amid national security fears.
The ban is expected to be included in a massive omnibus measure to fund US government operations that is expected to be voted on this week, the sources said.
Last week’s proposal won the support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.
TikTok said the concerns were largely fueled by misinformation. The legislation would not impact the more than 100 million Americans who use TikTok on private or company-owned devices.
Many federal agencies, including the White House and the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and State, already ban TikTok from government-owned devices.
Also on Monday, state agencies in Louisiana and West Virginia became the latest to ban the use of TikTok on government devices, fearing China could use it to track Americans and censor content.
Some 19 of the 50 US states have now at least partially blocked government computer access to TikTok. Most of the restrictions have come in the past two weeks.
In 2020, then-Republican President Donald Trump tried to block new users from downloading TikTok and ban other transactions that would have effectively blocked use of the app in the United States, but lost a series of court battles.
The US government’s Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS), a national security body, has been seeking for months to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of American users of TikTok, but it seems that no agreement will not be concluded before the end of the year. .
