The US Department of Justice has concluded that a federal law prohibiting TikTok from being installed on government-issued devices no longer applies to the version of the app currently operating in the United States.
The decision was outlined in a legal opinion issued this week by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal guidance to the executive branch. The opinion comes six months after TikTok’s US operations were transferred to a new joint venture controlled mainly by American investors.
TikTok had faced years of scrutiny over national security concerns because of its former ownership by Chinese company ByteDance, which now retains only a minority stake in the US business.
In 2022, Congress passed bipartisan legislation requiring executive agencies to remove TikTok from government devices. The law also covered “any successor application or service developed or provided by ByteDance Limited or an entity owned by ByteDance Limited.”
However, the Justice Department said the restriction does not extend to the current US version of the platform.
“Congress banned only the version of TikTok that shares the same problematic ownership features,” the Office of Legal Counsel stated in its 12-page opinion addressed to the deputy counsel to the president.
The opinion noted that federal agencies still have the authority to decide whether employees may install the app on official devices.
It added that agencies may “independently decide to ban the downloading of TikTok to government devices for workforce management reasons, such as promoting employee productivity.”
The legal opinion also stated: “We understand you have since instructed that employees of Executive Branch agencies may download TikTok onto their official devices, subject to the agency’s discretion and consistent with all applicable workplace policies.”
The White House declined to comment directly, referring enquiries to the Justice Department.
Lawmakers originally pushed for the restriction over concerns that user data collected by ByteDance-owned TikTok could be accessed by the Chinese government, allegations the company repeatedly denied.
Congress later approved legislation in 2024 that would have effectively banned TikTok nationwide unless ByteDance sold its US operations by January 2025. The law took effect one day before President Donald Trump returned to office.
After assuming office, Trump instructed the Justice Department not to enforce the ban, saying his administration was working on an agreement to restructure the app’s ownership.
That deal, finalised in January 2026, placed the US version of TikTok under the control of a consortium of predominantly American investors, while ByteDance retained a 19.9 per cent stake, just below the legal ownership threshold.
Among the investors is Oracle, which oversees key cybersecurity measures under the arrangement. The new venture, known as TikTok US Data Security (USDS), said it would retrain TikTok’s recommendation algorithm using data from US users, while Oracle would continuously monitor and verify the platform’s source code.
Despite the restructuring, some lawmakers have questioned whether the ownership changes sufficiently address the national security issues that prompted Congress to act. The agreement is also facing legal challenges from investors linked to rival technology firms, while the federal government has asked the court to dismiss the case, which remains pending.
