Meta hits back after US House staffers banned from using WhatsApp over
security fears

Date:
Tue, 24 Jun 2025 13:07:00 +0000

Description:
US Congress workers are to be asked to remove WhatsApp from all government-issued devices, and Meta isn't happy.

FULL STORY

The US House's Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) has banned WhatsApp from
all government devices used by congressional staffers amid growing security concerns.

A Axios report claims the warning cited a lack of transparency surrounding
data protection as a key motivation behind the ban, while also noting the absence of stored data encryption, raising potential security risks
associated with WhatsApp use.

The ban will affect all versions of WhatsApp, including the mobile app,
desktop app and web browser versions. US Congress workers asked to remove WhatsApp

Staffers with WhatsApp on House-managed devices will be contacted to remove
the app, according to the report.

Although tech bans are nothing new to US government workers, most have been related to ongoing geopolitical tensions DeepSeek and ByteDance are two Chinese platforms that have been banned. However, workers have also been restricted from using Microsoft Copilot, and only certain paid versions of ChatGPT may be used.

"The Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high-risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use," the CAO explained to Axios .

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone challenged the Congressional ban of WhatsApp, wroting on X, "We know members and their staffs regularly use WhatsApp and we look forward to ensuring members of the House can join their Senate counterparts in doing so officially."

"We disagree with the House Chief Administrative Officers characterization in the strongest possible terms."

Stone also noted that WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted by default, which is more than can be said about a number of other CAO-approved apps.

Although one communication platform has been banned, the CAO explained that other alternatives remain viable, including Microsoft Teams, Wickr, Signal, iMessage and FaceTime.

The news comes shortly after the Scottish government also banned WhatsApp (instead preferring certain enterprise messaging apps ), but that move
relates to the deletion of messages by workers, as highlighted in the Covid enquiry.

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/meta-hits-back-after-us-house-staffers-banned-fr om-using-whatsapp-over-security-fears

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Mike Powell wrote to All <=-

Meta hits back after US House staffers banned from using WhatsApp over security fears

Date:
Tue, 24 Jun 2025 13:07:00 +0000

Description:
US Congress workers are to be asked to remove WhatsApp from all government-issued devices, and Meta isn't happy.

Is anyone not cool with government employees not using third party
private comms apps on government devices?


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US Congress workers are to be asked to remove WhatsApp from all government-issued devices, and Meta isn't happy.

Is anyone not cool with government employees not using third party
private comms apps on government devices?

I would prefer them not to. Here in Kentucky, we were not allowed to use
them, especially for government-related correspondence. We seemed to have crossed a line somewhere, and it appears to have been going on for a while.

Mike


* SLMR 2.1a * ))))) TAKE A MINUTE TO THANK YOUR SYSOP (((((
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On Wed 25-Jun-2025 2:54p, Mike Powell@1:2320/105.0 said to Kurt Weiske:

Is anyone not cool with government employees not using third party private comms apps on government devices?

I would prefer them not to. Here in Kentucky, we were not allowed to use them, especially for government-related correspondence. We seemed to have crossed a line somewhere, and it appears to have been going on for a
while.

My question then would be, what do you suppose they use? Since at some point somewhere, you are more than likely going to end up on a commercial internet backbone. So regardless of what government specific app you use. The data is being routed through public IP space. Not like the old days where you had dedicated copper circuits.

That more and more government applications services are leaving ON PREM space and going into the cloud.

Rug Rat (Brent Hendricks)
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My question then would be, what do you suppose they use? Since at some point somewhere, you are more than likely going to end up on a commercial internet backbone. So regardless of what government specific app you use. The data is
being routed through public IP space. Not like the old days where you had dedicated copper circuits.

In our case, it would have been the utilities provided which were to be
used over VPN. The exceptions would have been text and telephone calls.
Those were not over VPN. I agree those are going to wind up on "commercial space" somewhere, but at least I would not be responsible in the sense that
I wasn't using an unapproved solution.

Mike


* SLMR 2.1a * Doubt is the root of education, not faith.
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My question then would be, what do you suppose they use? Since at

some
point

somewhere, you are more than likely going to end up on a commercial

internet

backbone. So regardless of what government specific app you use.

The data
is

being routed through public IP space. Not like the old days where

you had

dedicated copper circuits.

In our case, it would have been the utilities provided which were to be
used over VPN. The exceptions would have been text and telephone
calls.
Those were not over VPN. I agree those are going to wind up on
"commercial
space" somewhere, but at least I would not be responsible in the sense
that
I wasn't using an unapproved solution.

Mike

It should be easy for the gov't to produce an app that would be used by elected officials.

Different levels of encription could be divied out to different portions of gov't.

Jazzy J


| AmiQWK 2.9 - FREEWARE |
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On Thu 26-Jun-2025 5:17p, Jazzy J wrote:

It should be easy for the gov't to produce an app that would be used by elected officials.

It should be, especially if based on an OpenSource, COTS software. However, easy and cheap are often two different things.

Then you run into 2 common issues with govn't IT solutions.

1) Nothing is ever truely secure.
2) You can take soemthing that works well in the private sector, but doesn't work quite as well in a Govt/DoD application. Take their suite of health care / Electronic Health Record applications.

AHLTA then MHS Genesis. Surprisingly the VA has a much loved EHR called VA VISTA, that was home grown, and so far the VA has been successful in not being pushed to adopt the new DoD EHR, even though congressionaly mandaded.

Different levels of encription could be divied out to different portions of gov't.

Jazzy J

| AmiQWK 2.9 - FREEWARE |
... You're Never Alone With Schizophrenia.

Rug Rat (Brent Hendricks)
Blog and Forums - www.catracing.org
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Mike Powell wrote to KURT WEISKE <=-

I would prefer them not to. Here in Kentucky, we were not allowed to
use them, especially for government-related correspondence. We seemed
to have crossed a line somewhere, and it appears to have been going on
for a while.

Obama used a hardened, sanctioned Blackberry. Trump 45 was seen with a
Samsung S3 that I hope ran a third party OS without Google Services -
but I doubt it.



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Rug Rat wrote to Mike Powell <=-

My question then would be, what do you suppose they use? Since at some point somewhere, you are more than likely going to end up on a
commercial internet backbone.

Government grade VPN encryption PKI keys for access and a messaging
platform housed on-premise in a US government data center with the highest
security profile possible and following all government data retention
requirements.

Not a commercial product that allows auto-deletion of messages...


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I would prefer them not to. Here in Kentucky, we were not allowed to use them, especially for government-related correspondence. We seemed to have crossed a line somewhere, and it appears to have been going on for a while.

Obama used a hardened, sanctioned Blackberry. Trump 45 was seen with a Samsung S3 that I hope ran a third party OS without Google Services -
but I doubt it.

We used Blackberries for serveral years. Sometime before 2015, they
switched over to a choice between Apple and Android and phased out the last Blackberries in 2015.

Last phone I got sometime before COVID was an Apple, so I am not sure if they had phased all the Androids out, too, or if I got that just because my
previous work phone was also an Apple.

Based on what I was told in 2015 when they forced me off of Blackberry, it sounded like they "got a great deal" had a lot more weight than whatever security risks they were introducing.

Mike

* SLMR 2.1a * Ah, the vastness of space and time... and I end up here..
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It should be easy for the gov't to produce an app that would be used by elected officials.

Different levels of encription could be divied out to different portions of gov't.

You would think so. My limited experience with government programming
shops and web applications would be that, due to the pay gap vs. private industry, the talent pool would be limited.

They'd either wind up with something not too secure or some "closed
source" application that was created "for government use" by a third-party.

That experience comes from watching employee turn over rates, and also from working on disaster recovery exercises, where your inadvertantly learn some things about what the web apps are doing in the background (like making
calls to servers for CSS, etc., that are outside of the government server network). Lots of "no-nos" can be exposed when doing disaster recovery on
a closed network. ;)

Mike


* SLMR 2.1a * (((((This message in Stereo where available)))))
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Government grade VPN encryption PKI keys for access and a messaging
platform housed on-premise in a US government data center with the highest
security profile possible and following all government data retention
requirements.

Not a commercial product that allows auto-deletion of messages...

Yes. That last bit is a big no-no as it violates FOIA standards.

Mike


* SLMR 2.1a * To risk nothing is to risk everything.
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