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The U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted unanimously to pass legislation that would ban the use of the video-sharing app TikTok on government phones and devices amid growing concerns that the app poses a cybersecurity risk and is a threat to national security.
The “No TikTok on Government Devices Act,” was first introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in April 2021 and will essentially follow up on steps already taken by the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and The Transportation Security Administration to ban the video application from being used on federal government devices.
Specifically, the bill (pdf) requires the Office of Management and Budget to develop standards for executive agencies that require TikTok and any successor application by its owner to be pulled from any device issued by the U.S. or a government corporation.
The bill does include exceptions for law enforcement activities, national security interests, and security researchers in some circumstances.
Although it passed the Senate unanimously on Wednesday, Hawley’s bill will still need to be passed by the House and signed into law by President Joe Biden.‘TikTok Is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party’
A similar bill was first introduced in March 2020 and unanimously passed the Senate in August 2020 but stalled in the House. It was subsequently reintroduced in April 2021 by Senators Hawley, Rick Scott (R-Fla.
