According to a guidance memorandum issued Feb. 27 by the Office of Management and Budget, all federal executive agencies must remove TikTok and related apps from ByteDance within 30 days.
According to the memorandum: “The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, enacted the No TikTok on Government Devices Act (‘the Act’), which instructs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, in consultation with the Administrator of General Services, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Secretary of Defense, to develop standards and guidelines for agencies requiring the removal of TikTok from Federal information technology. This memorandum fulfills that requirement by directing agencies to remove TikTok from Federal devices and providing instructions and deadlines for that removal.”
The No TikTok on Government Devices Act passed Congress in December.
The guidance comes amid nationwide concern over the Chinese-owned short-form video hosting service.
Lancaster County recently became the first county in Pennsylvania to ban the software from all county-issued devices. And House Republicans pushed a bill through committee Wednesday that could give President Joe Biden the power to ban TikTok nationwide.
“Everybody knows what TikTok is,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said. “It’s too dangerous to be on our phones as members of Congress. In my judgment, it’s too dangerous to be on our children’s phones. That’s the whole point of this bill.”
