Pa. Treasury bans TikTok from its phones, computers
Amid national security concerns involving the social media app TikTok, Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity said she has banned its use on Treasury-owned phones and computers.
This comes at a time when Congress is considering a similar ban of the video-sharing app on all federal government devices and possibly, a nationwide ban. Twenty states so far have taken steps to ban the app on some or all government-owned devices with the state of Indiana filing two lawsuits against TikTok relating to false claims the company has made about content and the protection of information it collects from its users.
Government officials claim the app, which is owned by Beijing, Chinabased ByteDance, poses a security risk because it could put sensitive data, including location information, personal habits and interests of Americans, in the hands of the Chinese government.
“Treasury’s computer network is targeted by scammers and criminals every day,” Ms. Garrity said in a statement last week. “TikTok presents a clear danger due to its collection of personal data and its close connection to the communist Chinese government. Banning TikTok from Treasury devices and systems is an important step in our never-ending work to ensure the safety of Pennsylvanians’ hard-earned tax dollars and other important, sensitive information entrusted to Treasury.”
She said an internal security review conducted this month found the app had not been used on any Treasury-issued devices. In addition to barring its use on a Treasury-owned device, she said the
department’s firewall has been updated to ban access to the app and its corresponding website. Treasury is just the latest state agency to ban or restrict access to TikTok. Stacey Witalec, a spokeswoman for the state courts, said the app has been banned from court-owned devices for three or four years. The auditor general’s office has a policy banning personal use of department-owned devices and TikTok is not one of the platforms it uses to communicate with Pennsylvanians, said office spokeswoman April Hutcheson. Jacklin Rhoads, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said office policy bars employees from using state-issued equipment to access social media for personal use. She said employees “have a duty to ensure that state-issued equipment is used for authorized purposes.” As for state agencies that operate under the governor’s jurisdiction, Dan Egan, a spokesman for the Office of Administration, said they are currently prohibited from creating or using TikTok accounts for commonwealth business or for authorizing the platform for media advertisements on behalf of the commonwealth. FBI director Christopher Wray testified before the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee last month to warn about the app’s security threat. He said China’s Communist government could use its national security laws to compel ByteDance to share data that could infiltrate and compromise devices of app users, according to an NPR report.