The US House of Representatives has ordered staff to delete TikTok from any House-issued mobile phones, according to an internal memo obtained by NBC News.The CAO’s Office of Cybersecurity believes TikTok to be a “high risk to users” due to a lack of transparency regarding how its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, handles customer data.“If you have the TikTok app on your House mobile device, you will be contacted to remove it.”Local administrations in 19 states have already banned TikTok on government issued-devicesBrooke Oberwetter, a spokeswoman for TikTok, said to The Wall Street Journal that the move was a political signal rather than a practical solution for security concerns, and claimed that the ban would have minimal impact because very few House-managed phones have TikTok installed.TikTok is already banned on government-owned devices by the local administrations in 19 states citing security concerns, and the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress on December 23rd contains language banning the app on phones issued to employees of agencies in the executive branch, with exemptions for law enforcement, national security, and research purposes.Many members of Congress are present on TikTok, and while House lawmakers and staffers are now required to delete the app, this directive still does not apply to the Senate."