Tech Desk 
Jun 24, 2025
WhatsApp has been banned from all devices of the US House of Representatives because of an emerging concern regarding data security and privacy. The House announced a memo to all House staff from the Office of Cybersecurity on Monday.
In the memo, the House said WhatsApp was a high-risk platform, citing a lack of visibility regarding how the service protects user data.
Officials raised concerns that the app doesn't store data in an encrypted format and poses other conceivable threats to data security.
Therefore, House staff will have to delete WhatsApp from all of their House devices.
The House instead encouraged the use of different messaging platforms, including Microsoft's Teams, Amazon's Wickr, Signal, Apple's iMessage and FaceTime, apps which officials said provide better data security for government communications.
Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, strongly objected to the ban. A company spokesperson said Meta disagreed “in the strongest possible terms,” arguing that WhatsApp security features offer higher protection than many of the apps now approved for use. WhatsApp has long promoted its end-to-end encryption as a leading standard in private messaging.
Security issues were highlighted earlier this year when a WhatsApp official said that Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions had unsuccessfully targeted multiple users, including journalists and civil society members. This has increased scrutiny of how data privacy in messaging apps can, in fact, be exploited.
The US House has previously banned other apps over security risks. In 2022, it banned using TikTok on staff devices for the same reason.
