- The Trump administration has an official White House app
- It’s a mandatory install on most government-issued phones
- Federal workers are finding they’re unable to remove it
Over to the White House, where many government staffers are none-too-happy about having the current administration’s official app foisted on to their phones. There’s a lot of pro-Trump content in here, and there seems to be no way to get rid of the app.
As Wired reports, numerous federal workers are unhappy about having the app forced on them: one said it features “pure unadulterated propaganda” from the Trump administration, while another said “I deleted it as a test and it came immediately back.”
The app that now seems to be mandatory on government-issued devices is apparently the same one that anyone can download for their Android or iOS devices. It features breaking news, social media feeds, photo galleries, and various streams of Presidential addresses and press conferences.
There’s also reportedly a button in the app to “text President Trump”, which then autofills a speech bubble reading “Greatest President Ever” — one of the touches in the app that the non-partisan civil servants are taking objection to.
Security and privacy worries
Federal Workers Can’t Get the White House’s App Off Their Phones from r/technology
It seems all of the news and content in the app takes a pro-Republican and anti-Democrat stance, which is fine for political campaigning but less suitable for federal agency workers who stay in post as administrations come and go.
According to Wired, some officials are simply refusing to engage with the app or even use their government phones much at all. Some agencies seem to have been able to escape having the app as a compulsory install — the General Services Administration is one that Wired mentions, for example.
It seems the privacy policies for the app are rather insubstantial too, while back in May a security researcher found numerous problems around data safety and privacy in the app — again, not ideal for devices issued to government staff. The app tracks user locations every 4.5 minutes, and interacts with non-government infrastructure.
Social media reactions are varied, with some Reddit posters saying the White House is entitled to put whatever it wants on government phones, while others are saying they’re “sick of the constant surveillance” and calling the mandatory app installs “pathetic”.
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