U.S. House staff are reportedly banned from using WhatsApp. Axios reported that the Chief Executive of the House informed employees on Monday that the use of Meta’s messaging app is now banned on the grounds of security concerns.
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“The Office of Cybersecurity believes WhatsApp is a high risk for users due to the lack of transparency to protect user data, the lack of stored data encryption and the potential security risks involved in its use,” the Chief Executive Officer wrote in an email seen by Axios.
Therefore, internal personnel are now prohibited from using WhatsApp on any government device, and even accessing their browser versions on such devices. Instead, they are pointed to alternatives like Signal, Microsoft Teams, Amazon’s Wickr or Apple’s Imessage and FaceTime.
In response to the question on X, Meta’s communications director Andy Stone refuted such security issues, claiming that both members of the House and Senate use Whatapp regularly.
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“Messages on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted by default, meaning only that recipients, not even WhatsApp can see them,” Stone wrote. “This is more than most apps in most apps on the list approved by the CAO, which do not provide that protection.”
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End-to-end encryption is a security measure that disrupts messages and is therefore only decrypted by your intended recipient. End-to-end encryption of signals is always enabled, which helps them gain reputation by focusing on privacy. By default, iMessage, FaceTime, and Wickr also seem to have this encryption. The exception to the Microsoft team is because users must enable their end-to-end encryption.
When Mashable commented, Meta reiterated Stone’s statement.
The security issues regarding the applications used by government employees are nothing new. State such as New York and Texas have previously used DeepSeek’s AI app on several government devices, and Tiktok was banned from use by all federal devices in early 2023.
