Justice Department says federal TikTok ban no longer applies after ownership change
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The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion that the 2022 law prohibiting TikTok on government devices does not cover the app's current U.S. version, leaving the decision to individual agencies.
The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a 12-page opinion stating that the 2022 congressional ban on TikTok for federal devices no longer applies to the version of the app now operated by a U.S.-based joint venture. The opinion, addressed to the deputy counsel to the president, notes that the law targeted "the version of TikTok that shares the same problematic ownership features" and that the current arrangement, in which Chinese parent ByteDance holds a 19.9% stake, falls outside that scope.
The ruling follows a January 2026 transaction that transferred majority ownership of TikTok's U.S. operations to a consortium of American investors, with Oracle among the investors. The new entity, TikTok U.S. Data Security (TikTok USDS), pledged enhanced cybersecurity measures, including algorithm retraining with American user data and ongoing source-code review by Oracle.
While the opinion removes the blanket legal restriction, each federal agency retains the authority to prohibit TikTok on its devices for workplace-management reasons, such as productivity concerns. The White House has referred a request for comment to the Justice Department, and the department has not yet provided a response.
The original 2022 law had been enacted amid concerns that data from a ByteDance-owned app could be accessed by the Chinese government. In 2024, Congress passed additional legislation that would have barred TikTok nationwide unless ByteDance divested by January 2025, but the ban was not enforced following a directive from the former president.