On Monday, the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives officially banned the messaging app WhatsApp from official congressional staff devices. The Office of Cybersecurity determined that WhatsApp poses a high risk due to its lack of transparency in protecting user data.
The director recommended that employees switch to alternative messaging apps such as Microsoft Teams, Amazon Wickr, Apple iMessage and FaceTime. The ban coincides with restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) software that has been deemed similarly risky in Congress.
CAO encourages migration to more secure applications
BREAKING:
The US House of Representatives officially bans the use of WhatsApp on all official devices pic.twitter.com/J4KlbQyAT6
— Vaultedmag (@vaultedmag) 23/06/2025
The Chief Executive Officer is requesting that all congressional staff not download or maintain the WhatsApp application on any House-owned device, including mobile, desktop, or browser version. Those who continue to use the application will be contacted to remove it.
META spokesman Andy Stone, WhatsApp’s parent company, disputed this claim, stressing that WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption by default, protecting messages between the sender and recipient only, and that no one else, including WhatsApp, can read them.
“WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted by default, meaning they can only be read by the recipient, not by WhatsApp. This is a higher level of security than most apps on the CAO-approved list, which do not offer similar protection.”
– Andy Stone, WhatsApp Spokesperson.
The CAO recommends Microsoft Teams, Wickr, Signal, iMessage and FaceTime as suitable alternatives. The office also warns employees to be wary of phishing attacks and messages from unknown numbers.
In January 2025, about 100 journalists and civil society members using WhatsApp were targeted by spyware provided by Paragon Solutions, an Israeli hacking software developer. WhatsApp confirmed that about 90 users were attacked and their devices were compromised, but did not disclose the locations of the victims.
Paragon spyware, called Graphite, is similar to NSO Group's Pegasus, allowing hackers to take complete control of a device, including reading messages in encrypted apps like WhatsApp.
CAO continues to ban many other technology applications
Previously, the House of Representatives banned apps such as Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, and products from ByteDance – the Chinese company that owns TikTok. In July 2024, the CAO issued an order banning the use of ByteDance on all House devices, including TikTok, Capcut, Hypic, Lark, and Lemon8, due to concerns about national security risks from its ties to China.
In March 2024, the House of Representatives banned the use of Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft’s AI chatbot, due to the risk of data leakage to unapproved cloud services. This is a similar move to other tech companies such as Samsung, which has restricted the use of artificial AI on personal computers since May 2023.
On April 7, 2025, the White House announced a new policy on the use of AI in federal agencies. President Trump issued an executive order aimed at removing obstacles to America's leadership in AI by revising policies related to the government's use and procurement of AI.
Trump wants to promote the development of AI systems that are free of ideological biases or pre-designed social programs, thereby protecting the nation's competitive advantage in advanced AI technology.
Source: https://tintucbitcoin.com/ha-vien-my-cam-whatsapp-vi-bao-mat/
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