Meta’s in style messaging app, WhatsApp, has been banned from the U.S. Home of Representatives, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Catherine Szpindor instructed 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 knowledge, absence of saved knowledge encryption, and potential safety dangers concerned with its use,” the e-mail mentioned, seen by Axios.
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The be aware mentioned the app is banned from all authorities units, together with telephones and computer systems.
“Home employees are NOT allowed to obtain or preserve the WhatsApp utility on any Home system, together with any cell, desktop, or internet browser variations of its merchandise,” the e-mail added. “If in case you have a WhatsApp utility in your Home-managed system, you can be contacted to take away it.”
In the meantime, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded on X that the tech big disagrees “within the strongest potential phrases.”
“We all know members and their staffs usually 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,” 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 record 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 record that don’t supply that safety.”
Szpindor instructed CNBC in a written assertion that “defending the Individuals’s Home is our topmost precedence,” and this was enacted after “monitoring and analyzing for potential cybersecurity dangers that might endanger the info 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 in style messaging app, WhatsApp, has been banned from the U.S. Home of Representatives, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Catherine Szpindor instructed 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 knowledge, absence of saved knowledge encryption, and potential safety dangers concerned with its use,” the e-mail mentioned, seen by Axios.
Associated: Microsoft Workers Are Banned From Utilizing This Well-liked AI App
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