HARRISBURG (TNS) — Amid national security concerns involving the social media app TikTok, Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity announced on Thursday 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 on it and the protection of information it collects from its users.
Government officials claim the app, which is owned by Beijing, China-based ByteDance, poses a risk 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,” Garrity said in a statement. “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 that 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 that office’s 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.”
Messages sent out to the governor’s Office of Administration did not draw an immediate response.
FBI director Christopher Wray testified before the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee last month to warn about the security threat the app poses. He said China’s ruling Communist government could use its national security laws to compel ByteDance to share data that could be used to infiltrate and compromise the devices of the app users, according to an NPR report.
TikTok, meanwhile, has denied it shares data with Chinese government officials but members of Congress officials are skeptical and are making moves to restrict or ban its use.
A provision in a sweeping spending bill Congress is considering this week would ban TikTok on all federal government devices. A separate bill with bipartisan backing introduced last week would impose a national ban on the app, which is the second most popular app with American teen-agers behind only YouTube, according to the Pew Research Center.
