Will NC ban TikTok on state devices? Review underway as lawmakers ask Gov. Cooper to act
Two North Carolina legislators are calling on Gov. Roy Cooper to ban TikTok — a popular social media site owned by a Chinese technology company — from operating on all state government devices.
In a letter Wednesday, Reps. Jason Saine and Jon Hardister, both Republican lawmakers, urged the Democratic governor to issue an executive order in the interest of “national security.”
“(T)he Chinese government is constantly working to infiltrate our communications and access intellectual data within the United States,” Saine and Hardister wrote. “If sensitive data is breached, it could pose both an economic and a security threat for North Carolina.”
The legislators’ plea follows years of political angst over the Chinese-owned app, which some cyber security experts and the FBI have warned may allow the communist government to access sensitive U.S. data.
“Jon (Hardister) called me and said, ‘You’re the tech and computer guy, what do you think?’” said Saine, who runs a technology services firm. “I said, ‘Everything I’ve read — and from talking to cyber security people — everyone seems to think TikTok is bad news.’”
Saine emphasized that his and Hardister’s joint petition to Cooper was “definitely not adversarial.”
“It’s just he has the power to do something so we wanted to encourage that,” Saine told The News & Observer. “And it’s also a notice to employees that they really shouldn’t be using the app (on government devices).”
Cooper’s office said it’s considering new safety measures.
“The state is constantly updating guidance to ensure cyber security and is reviewing state government use of TikTok and considering potential additional safety measures,” said Mary Scott Winstead, a spokesperson for the governor.
Legislation possible
If the governor chooses not to issue an executive order barring TikTok from state devices, Saine and Hardister plan to introduce legislation that would accomplish the same thing.
“But that could take a couple of months after the legislature comes back to get the first piece of legislation,” Saine said. “I think we could do with some more immediacy.”
Similar efforts to proscribe TikTok in other states and at the federal level have escalated in recent weeks as lawmakers question the app’s privacy protections.
At least 14 state governments have already banned TikTok from government-issued devices, according to the New York Times, and a sweeping congressional bill is poised to introduce such prohibitions at the federal level. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the roughly $1.7 trillion spending package, called the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which includes a TikTok ban on federally owned devices.
A separate bill introduced by Congress on Dec. 13 would extend TikTok’s ban across all devices in the country, effectively shuttering the app’s U.S. activity.
In an emailed statement to The N&O, a TikTok spokesperson declined to comment on specifics of North Carolina’s potential ban but said broadly that “politicians with national security concerns should encourage the (Biden) Administration to conclude its national security review of TikTok.”
“The agreement under review will meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at both the federal and state level,” the statement said. “These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country’s top national security agencies — plans that we are well underway in implementing — to further secure our platform in the United States, and we will continue to brief lawmakers on them.”
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This story was originally published December 29, 2022 at 3:24 PM.
