Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

In the near future, I will reintroduce Senate Bill 379 of last session that would prohibit state government agencies from downloading and using TikTok. TikTok presents an unacceptable level of cybersecurity risk to the commonwealth and may be involved in activities such as cyber-espionage, surveillance of government entities, and inappropriate collection of sensitive personal information. 

The people of Pennsylvania’s personal safety and our national security are threatened by cyber vulnerabilities of systems that support our daily lives. It is imperative that Pennsylvania takes bold and decisive actions to prepare for and address cybersecurity threats. As of March 2024, 39 states have prohibited TikTok from government devices (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/tiktok-ban-states) following warnings from the FBI which stated the Chinese government could use TikTok to control data collection on millions of U.S. users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations. Additionally, CIA Director Bill Burns did an interview with PBS NewsHour where he stated, “it’s genuinely troubling to see what the Chinese government could do to manipulate TikTok.” 

In April of this year, Congress acted on those warnings and President Biden signed into law a national TikTok ban that would go into effect by April 2025. The law requires TikTok to be sold from its parent company, ByteDance, within one year or else the app will be banned in the United States. This ban will likely be challenged and could take years for resolution. In the meantime, it is still imperative that we protect our own government devices from any potential threat.

Under this legislation, agencies, departments, commissions and all state government entities must remove the application from state networks, implement measures to prevent installation of the application, and implement network-based restrictions to prevent the use of, or access to, prohibited services to assure Pennsylvania’s systems are protected from the cybersecurity threats caused by these rogue foreign governmental entities. 

This measure will ensure that Pennsylvanians and the IT systems that serve them are protected. 

Please join me in cosponsoring this important piece of legislation.  

Previous cosponsors include Senators Robinson, Dush, Gebhard, Stefano, Bartolotta, J. Ward, Rothman, and Pennycuick.