The U.S. Home of Representatives has formally banned congressional employees members from utilizing WhatsApp on government-issued units, citing safety considerations.
The event was first reported by Axios.
The choice, in line with the Home Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), was motivated by worries concerning the app’s safety.
“The Workplace of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high-risk to customers as a result of lack of transparency in the way it protects consumer knowledge, absence of saved knowledge encryption, and potential safety dangers concerned with its use,” the CAO mentioned in a memo, in line with Axios.
To that finish, Home employees are prohibited from downloading the app on any system issued by the federal government, together with its cell, desktop, or internet browser variations.
WhatsApp has pushed again towards these considerations, stating messages despatched on the platform are end-to-end encrypted by default, and that it provides a “greater stage” of safety than a lot of the apps on CAO’s permitted listing.
“We disagree with the Home Chief Administrative Officer’s characterization within the strongest attainable phrases,” Meta’s Communication Director Andy Stone mentioned in a submit on social media web site X.
“We all know members and their staffs recurrently use WhatsApp and we look ahead to making certain members of the Home can be a part of their Senate counterparts in doing so formally.”
As “acceptable” options, the CAO’s message has beneficial that the employees use apps like Microsoft Groups, Amazon’s Wickr, Sign, and Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime. WhatsApp is the most recent app to be banned by the Home after TikTok, OpenAI ChatGPT, and DeepSeek.
Final week, the Meta-owned messaging app mentioned it is bringing adverts in an effort to monetize the platform, however emphasised they’re carried out in a fashion with out sacrificing consumer privateness.
