New York City Bans TikTok on All City-Owned Devices

By Chris Hauk
3 Min Read
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The New York City government has issued a directive banning the TikTok app from all city-owned devices used by city employees, reports The Verge. NYC employees have been ordered to cease using the app immediately, and agencies will need to delete the app from all devices owned and managed by the city within the next 30 days. The NYC Cyber Command calls TikTok a “security threat to the city’s technical networks.”

In addition to the requirement to stop using the TikTok app and delete it from any devices issued by the city, employees are also banned from visiting the TikTok website from their work devices.

While social media is great at connecting New Yorkers with one another and the city, we have to ensure we are always using these platforms in a secure manner. NYC Cyber Command regularly explores and advances proactive measures to keep New Yorkers’ data safe.NYC City Hall spokesperson, in a statement to The Verge.

New York City is the latest government agency to ban the app from their employees’ work devices.

In 2020, the New York State government banned TikTok from government-issued devices. However, some employees were still allowed to access the social app for marketing purposes.

The US House of Representatives administration banned TikTok from US government devices in December 2022, following a June suggestion by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that the TikTok app be deleted from Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store. In a letter sent to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr called TikTok a “sophisticated surveillance tool” for the Chinese government.

The US government has expressed concerns that data for TikTok users in the US is stored on servers in China, even though TikTok owner ByteDance claims this is not the case.

Governments in several other countries have also banned TikTok from government-supplied devices, including Canada, Taiwan, Australia, the European Union, New Zealand, and the UK.

While several states have banned TikTok from government devices, at least one state has taken things even further. In May, Montana passed legislation to prohibit the App Store and Play Store from offering the TikTok app for download within the state, effectively banning TikTok for all users in the state, not just government employees. TikTok has sued the state in an effort to reverse the ban.

There are several security and privacy concerns related to TikTok. In an August 2022 article, security researcher Felix Krause explained that TikTok’s in-app browser on iOS injects JavaScript code into external websites. This allows TikTok’s parent company to monitor all keyboard entries and taps during a user’s website visit while in the app.

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has admitted that some of the company’s China-based employees can view data from users located inside of the United States. However, the company claims that those employees are “subject to a series of robust cybersecurity controls and authorization approval protocols.”

There have been several attempts to ban TikTok outright in the US. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order that sought to ban both TikTok and WeChat from US-based devices. Both apps are owned by Chinese companies.

The Trump administration claimed that TikTok and WeChat both posed a risk to national security, claiming there was “credible evidence” to suggest ByteDance “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”

However, several court orders blocked the Trump administration’s restrictions, and President Joe Biden revoked Trump’s bans on TikTok and WeChat in the US in June 2021.

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