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The US House of Representatives has warned staff members not to use Meta’s messaging platform WhatsApp due to privacy concerns.
The warnings will hit WhatsApp. WhatsApp has been concerned that 1.8 tonnes of parent meta is loose with user data in the hunt for commercial growth and advertising revenue.
A copy of the memo seen by the Financial Times said the House chief administrative officer on Monday said it was deemed “high risk to users.”
The email ordered house laptops or mobile devices not to download or keep messaging services from June 30th, adding that anyone with the application will be asked to delete them.
This decision was made due to the lack of transparency in “the way (WhatsApp) protects user data, the lack of data encryption at rest, and the potential security risks associated with its use.”
A Meta spokesman said the company opposed the properties “on the strongest possible conditions.”
People added that WhatsApp messages were “end-to-end encryption by default”, meaning that neither the company nor third parties can read them, and that the platform provided “a higher level of security than most apps on the CAO’s approved list.”
U.S. House-approved products include Microsoft Teams, Signal, Apple’s Imessage and FaceTime, and Amazon-owned messaging service Wickr. Meta said WhatsApp, which has around 3 billion users worldwide, has been approved for official use in the Senate.
“Saving people’s homes is our number one priority, and we are constantly monitoring and analyzing potential cybersecurity risks that could put our Congressman and staff data at risk.”
“We routinely review the list of apps that recognize the home and revise the list that is deemed appropriate.”
Meta bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, but due to differences in opinion about user privacy and lack of independence from the parent company, co-founder Brian Acton left the company in 2017.
Acton later co-founded Rival Signal. This was at the heart of rage in March after US officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses, misleading details of upcoming military strikes in journalists and informal messaging groups.
Meta is currently fighting legal challenges from the US Federal Trade Commission. It claims to have held an illegal monopoly for the purchase of WhatsApp and Photo-Sharing App Instagram.
The news comes as CEO Mark Zuckerberg overtured President Donald Trump, including multiple visits to the White House, to seek positive results for the meta.
Meta is also increasingly working with the US military, and is widely interpreted by Trump’s courts. Last November, Meta shifted policies to allow government agencies to use AI models called llamas for military purposes. Last month it announced that it would work with Andrill to build a mixed reality product for the US military.
Meanwhile, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth announced this month that he is accepting the committee as lieutenant colonel for the new Executive Innovation Corps for the U.S. Army Reserve.
