There’s a new government app on the block—and like many things in the Trump administration, it’s mildly concerning and really weird.
After a long week of promotion that sparked speculation about everything from potential nuclear strikes to presidential nudes, the Trump administration unveiled the “White House” app on Friday. Billed as a one-stop shop for official information, the app provides access to press releases, social media feeds, and live streams of everything that President Trump is up to. Users are even encouraged to send tips to ICE via the platform.
It didn’t take long for criticism to follow. Over the weekend, users began voicing concerns over the app’s extensive permission requests, which some users on X deemed to be invasive.
“NEW WHITE HOUSE ‘NEWS’ APP HAS CHINA-LEVEL BIG BROTHER PERMISSIONS,” @Diligent Denizen posted on X, with a screenshot showing that the app was requesting access to things like the precise location of the user and biometric hardware.
To be fair, most news and social media apps request similar permissions, and the White House app is not dramatically more invasive in comparison. Perhaps there is something to take out of this situation on how invasive some app tracking can be. But what’s actually out of the ordinary with the White House app is that it is an official government app that’s requesting access to this sensitive data.
An X user decompiled the Android version of the app on their blog and found that the app is basically just the White House website repackaged (not a shocker) into an app that collects an awful lot of data and relies on perhaps a bit too much on external code for an official government app (the actual shocker.)
Looking at the code, the blogger, Thereallo, concluded that the app hides cookie consent dialogs, GDPR banners, login walls and paywalls from other websites; tracks your location every 4.5 minutes when you’re using it actively and every 9.5 minutes when you’re not; and uses “a random person’s GitHub Pages site for YouTube embeds,” which raises risks if that GitHub account ever gets compromised.
The app also uses other non-government third parties, like Mailchimp for email addresses and Uploadcare for images, and profiles users “extensively” via the customer engagement platform OneSignal. None of these are out of place for a news app or a social media app whose business plan is built on user engagement, but a little out of place for a government app meant solely to provide open access to information.
“Is any of this illegal? Probably not. Is it what you’d expect from an official government app? Probably not either,” the blogger concludes.
There is also an element of fear that comes from a government like the Trump administration requesting access to this level of information. The administration has made social media monitoring a part of immigration decisions for foreign nationals. DHS has also subpoenaed tech companies like Google, Meta, and Reddit to identify American nationals who have criticized ICE online, according to a New York Times report from last month.
Meanwhile, administration officials have also been caught up in digital security scandals, most notably Signalgate, or the time when national security officials accidentally added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic to a Signal group chat where Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared details on upcoming military action in Yemen. Just a couple of months later, a modified version of Signal used by former national security advisor Mike Waltz was hacked, with the hacker stealing data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and some Democratic legislators in allegedly just 15 to 20 minutes.
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