On Monday, the U.S. House’s chief administrative officer banned the WhatsApp messaging app on the government devices of congressional staffers. The Office of Cybersecurity said WhatsApp is high-risk to users due to its lack of transparency in protecting user data.
The chief administrative officer recommended other messaging apps, including Microsoft Corp’s Teams platform, Amazon’s Wickr, Apple’s iMessage, and FaceTime. The ban comes as Congress is also taking steps to limit the use of AI programs it deems similarly risky.
CAO urges staffers to use other messaging app options.
The U.S. House’s chief administrative officer directed all congressional staffers not to download or keep the WhatsApp application on any House device, including any mobile, desktop, or web browser versions of its products. The official said that if any staffer has a WhatsApp application on their House-managed device, they will be contacted to remove it.
Spokesperson for WhatsApp parent company META, Andy Stone, said the firm disagrees with the CAO’s characterization of the messaging app. Stone acknowledged that the company knows members and their staff regularly use WhatsApp, and they look forward to ensuring members of the House can join their Senate counterparts in doing so too.
“Messages on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted by default, meaning only the recipients and not even WhatsApp can see them. This is a higher level of security than most of the apps on the CAO’s approved list that do not offer that protection.”
The CAO argued that Microsoft Teams, Wickr, Signal, iMessage, and FaceTime are all acceptable alternatives to WhatsApp. The Chief Administrative Office also warned staffers to be wary of potential phishing scams and texts from unknown numbers.
In January 2025, roughly 100 journalists and other members of civil society using WhatsApp were targeted by spyware owned by Paragon Solutions, an Israeli maker of hacking software. The victims were allegedly being alerted of a possible breach of their devices, and WhatsApp said around 90 users in question had been targeted and compromised.
Government clients use Paragon’s hacking software, and WhatsApp said it could not identify the clients who ordered the alleged attacks. WhatsApp did not disclose where the journalists and members of civil society were based, including whether they were based in the U.S.
Paragon’s software is known as Graphite and has features similar to NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. Once a phone is infected with Graphite, the spyware operator has total access to the device, including reading messages sent via encrypted applications like WhatsApp.
CAO bans other tech apps from congressional staffers.
The chamber’s representative has previously banned other tech companies, including Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, and ByteDance apps. In July 2024, the CAO banned staffers from using ByteDance, the Chinese-owned parent company of TikTok, on official congressional devices.
The division’s cybersecurity team said TikTok’s ties to China represented a national security threat. They initiated blocking and removing all ByteDance products from all House-managed devices and app stores. The ban also included Capcut, Hypic, Lark, and Lemon8.
In March 2024, the House also strictly banned congressional staffers’ use of Microsoft Copilot, the firm’s AI-based chatbot. The House’s Chief Administrative Officer, Catherine Szpindor, said the Office of Cybersecurity deemed the app a risk to users due to the threat of leaking House data to non-House-approved cloud services.
The ban on AI tools followed similar steps by tech companies such as Samsung, which distanced itself from artificial intelligence software for employees in May 2023. The South Korean tech giant said it temporarily restricted the use of generative AI through the company’s personal computers.
On April 7, 2025, the White House also released new policies on AI use in Federal agencies. Trump issued an executive order to remove barriers to American leadership in artificial intelligence by releasing two revised policies on Federal Agency Use of AI and Federal Procurement.
Trump wants to maintain U.S. leadership in AI by championing the development of AI systems that are free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas. The agenda revoked the previous AI policies that acted as barriers to American AI innovation.
