A ban on federal employees using TikTok on their government-issued phones is on track to become law after Congress included the provision in the year-end government funding bill released early Tuesday.
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley’s legislation barring the popular social media platform from federal devices was one of several bills attached to the spending measure, the last major action this Congress will take before new members are sworn in next month.
Federal employees would be barred from downloading TikTok, a widely used video-sharing platform owned by the Chinese technology firm ByteDance, on phones and other devices issued by the federal government. Exceptions would be allowed for intelligence gathering purposes.
Hawley, a Missouri Republican, and lawmakers from both parties have called the app a national security risk because users share location data and other personal information with the service. The Chinese government could easily access that data, critics say, because as a Chinese company, ByteDance is obligated to share the data it collects.
Congressional action comes after a flurry of activity at the state level.
More than a dozen governors have enacted similar bans for state devices, almost all of them coming in the last three weeks. Those states include South Dakota, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Virginia.
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