As more and more government officials warn of the security dangers of the popular social media app TikTok, politicians at the federal and state levels are working to limit the app’s data collection from affecting their offices.

One of those state-level politicians is Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, who has banned the app from being used on any device issued by his office.

.⁦@Louisiana_sos⁩ Kyle Ardoin bans TikTok on his agency’s state-issued devices, ask ⁦@LouisianaGov⁩ to follow suit statewide #lagov #lalege pic.twitter.com/QncINmC15H

— Greg Hilburn (@GregHilburn1) December 19, 2022

In a statement released by his office, Ardoin says:

“As Secretary of State, I have the serious responsibility of protecting voters’ personally identifiable information, which is why I have taken the step of banning the use of TikTok on all devices owned or leased by my agency. I wholeheartedly believe that doing so on a statewide level would protect our data and reaffirm our commitment to privacy protections for our constituents.”

His statement also asks Louisiana’s governor, John Bel Edwards, to order the same across all state agencies.

“Therefore,” he says, “I urge you to issue a directive banning the use of TikTok on our state government’s devices with immediate effect.”

Ardoin isn’t the only official to make the move. In other states – like North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Maryland, Texas, Utah, and Virginia – governors have made similar decisions. Legislation to ban federal government devices from having access has also made recent headlines.

TikTok has come under a lot of scrutiny for its data collection practices, which go far beyond what most apps collect. The key concern is how much of this data could be used by the Chinese government – all of the network’s servers are in China, and China has unprecedented access to it should they wish to utilize it.