TikTok Ban on US Government Devices No Longer in Effect

JAKARTA - The United States (US) Department of Justice (DOJ) stated that the rule requiring the removal of TikTok from federal government devices no longer applies to the latest version of the application in the US.

The legal opinion was issued six months after TikTok's operations in the US were transferred to a group of companies majority-owned by US investors, while its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, still retains a 19.9 percent stake.

TikTok has for the past few years faced intense scrutiny in the US due to national security concerns, which has led to the platform being threatened with a ban from operating nationwide.

At the end of 2022, the US Congress passed a law supported by Democrats and Republicans (bipartisan) that requires all agencies under the executive branch to remove TikTok from federal government devices.

According to an ABC News report, the rule also applies to "any successor application or service developed or provided by ByteDance Limited or an entity owned by ByteDance Limited."

However, on Thursday (16/7), the Office of Legal Counsel under the US Department of Justice said in a 12-page legal opinion to the Deputy General Counsel of the President that the rule no longer applies to the version of TikTok currently operating in the US.

"The Congress only prohibits the version of TikTok that has the same ownership characteristics and is a source of previous concerns," the legal opinion reads.

However, the Department of Justice emphasized that federal government agencies could still prohibit the use of the application on government devices on the grounds of workforce management, including to maintain productivity.

Restrictions on TikTok were previously imposed due to concerns that sensitive information belonging to the US government could be accessed by parties in China through the application.

In 2024, Congress again passed a law that in practice would ban TikTok from operating in the US if ByteDance did not relinquish ownership of its operations in the country.

A day before the rule took effect, President Donald Trump instructed the Department of Justice not to enforce the law on the grounds that his administration was finalizing an agreement regarding TikTok's ownership.

The deal was finally settled in January, when a group of investors, mostly from the US, took over the majority of TikTok's operational ownership in the country, while ByteDance retained a 19.9 percent stake.