Meta’s well-liked messaging app, WhatsApp, has been banned from the U.S. Home of Representatives, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Catherine Szpindor informed employees there on Monday.
“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 information, absence of saved information encryption, and potential safety dangers concerned with its use,” the e-mail stated, seen by Axios.
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The word stated the app is banned from all authorities gadgets, together with telephones and computer systems.
“Home employees are NOT allowed to obtain or hold the WhatsApp software on any Home system, together with any cell, desktop, or internet browser variations of its merchandise,” the e-mail added. “When you’ve got a WhatsApp software in your Home-managed system, you may be contacted to take away it.”
In the meantime, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded on X that the tech large disagrees “within the strongest doable phrases.”
“We all know members and their staffs often use WhatsApp and we stay up for making certain members of the Home can be a part of their Senate counterparts in doing so formally,” Stone wrote.
Messages on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted by default, which means solely the recipients and never even WhatsApp can see them. This can be a larger degree of safety than a lot of the apps on the CAO’s authorised checklist that don’t supply that safety.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) June 23, 2025
“Messages on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted by default, which means solely the recipients and never even WhatsApp can see them,” Stone added. “This can be a larger degree of safety than a lot of the apps on the CAO’s authorised checklist that don’t supply that safety.”
Szpindor informed CNBC in a written assertion that “defending the Folks’s Home is our topmost precedence,” and this was enacted after “monitoring and analyzing for potential cybersecurity dangers that might endanger the information of Home Members and employees.”
It is not the primary tech ban that the CAO has enacted, both. ChatGPT is restricted, and there have been full and partial bans on a number of instruments and apps, together with DeepSeek, TikTok, and Microsoft Copilot.
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Meta’s well-liked messaging app, WhatsApp, has been banned from the U.S. Home of Representatives, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Catherine Szpindor informed employees there on Monday.
“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 information, absence of saved information encryption, and potential safety dangers concerned with its use,” the e-mail stated, seen by Axios.
Associated: Microsoft Workers Are Banned From Utilizing This Standard AI App
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