New York City will ban TikTok from government devices, The Verge reported on Wednesday. City agencies have 30 days to remove the ByteDance-owned app from their devices. Employees will not be allowed to download or use TikTok on their city-sanctioned tech effective immediately. This comes three years after New York state banned TikTok from government devices in 2020, according to Times-Union.
NYC Cyber Command, a subset of the Office of Technology and Innovation, spurred the decision after reporting to the city that TikTok posed a security threat. "NYC Cyber Command regularly explores and advances proactive measures to keep New Yorkers' data safe," a City Hall spokesperson said. "As part of these ongoing efforts, NYC Cyber Command determined that the TikTok application posed a security threat to the city’s technical networks and directed its removal from city-owned devices.”