- The American administrative director confirms the prohibition of WhatsApp on the conference scale
- Data transparency and encryption are among the main concerns
- Meta says she does not agree “in the strongest possible terms”
The Administrative Director of the American Chamber (CAD) prohibited WhatsApp from all government devices used by Congress staff in the midst of growing security problems.
A Axios The report says that the warning has cited a lack of transparency surrounding data protection as a key motivation behind the prohibition, while also noting the lack of stored data encryption, increasing potential security risks associated with the use of WhatsApp.
The prohibition will affect all versions of WhatsApp, including the mobile application, the desktop application and the versions of the web browser.
The workers of the US Congress asked to remove WhatsApp
Staff members with WhatsApp on home -managed devices will be contacted to delete the application, depending on the report.
Although technological prohibitions are not new to US government employees, most of them have been linked to current geopolitical tensions – Deepseek and Bytedance are two Chinese platforms that have been prohibited. However, workers have also been linked to the use of Microsoft Copilot, and only certain paid versions of chatgpt can be used.
“The cybersecurity office considered that WhatsApp was at high risk for users because of the lack of transparency in the way it protects user data, the absence of encryption of stored data and potential security risks linked to its use,” said CAO Axios.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone challenged the ban on WhatsApp congress, who was tortable on X, “We know that members and their staff regularly use WhatsApp and we are impatient to ensure that the members of the Chamber can join their counterparts in the Senate to do it officially.”
“We do not agree with the characterization of the head of the administrative chamber in the strongest possible terms.”
Stone also noted that WhatsApp messages are encrypted from start to finish by default, which is more than that can be said on a number of other applications approved by CAD.
Although a communication platform has been prohibited, CAD has explained that other alternatives remain viable, in particular Microsoft Teams, Wickr, Signal, Imessage and Facetime.
The news occurs shortly after the Scottish government has also prohibited WhatsApp (rather preferring certain business messaging applications), but this decision relates to the deletion of workers’ messages, as the cocoded survey points out.
