The U.S. House of Representatives has banned the use of WhatsApp on all official devices, citing significant data security concerns, according to a memo sent to congressional staff on Monday.
The directive, issued by the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) through its Office of Cybersecurity, classified the Meta-owned messaging platform as a “high risk” application. It flagged WhatsApp’s lack of transparency in data protection practices, absence of stored data encryption, and potential exposure to broader cybersecurity threats as primary reasons for the ban.
As part of the directive, lawmakers and staff have been instructed to uninstall WhatsApp and adopt alternative, approved communication platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Amazon’s Wickr, Signal, Apple’s iMessage, and FaceTime.
Reacting to the decision, a WhatsApp spokesperson expressed strong disagreement, stating, “We disagree with this decision in the strongest possible terms,” while asserting that the platform provides robust security features—superior, in their view, to many of the sanctioned alternatives.
The ban follows recent disclosures that Israeli spyware firm Paragon Solutions had targeted WhatsApp users, including journalists and members of civil society. This development adds to a growing list of concerns over foreign surveillance threats via widely used digital platforms.
In a similar move in 2022, the House banned TikTok from official devices over national security risks, citing the platform’s ties to China and vulnerabilities in data handling.
