CLAIM: Left-wing personalities and politicians have claimed the White House app contains “spyware” via “a location tracker with NO WAY to disable it.”
VERDICT: FALSE. Tech security firm NowSecure reported that its testing of the White House app found no evidence of location data being collected or transmitted.
President Donald Trump’s White House app soared to first place in the App Store’s news category as the administration launched the 24-hour “Trump TV” livestream amid the ban on certain establishment outlets from the briefing room, prompting Democrats to slander the app as location-tracking “spyware.”
CNN, MS NOW, and Politico announced last month that they were suing the president and other senior administration officials after they were denied access to the White House on September 18 as punishment for reporting “fake news,” Breitbart News reported. A federal judge issued a directive in favor of the news organizations’ lawsuit, ordering that White House access be “immediately” restored to the three outlets, though the legal dispute is still ongoing.
Broadcasters in the White House television press pool — Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN — temporarily halted pool coverage of the White House in a move of solidarity with the blocked outlets.
The White House quickly launched its own official coverage on “Trump TV: The Essentials Station,” with ’round-the-clock streaming on its official app and YouTube channel.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) called the move an example of “authoritarianism in action” on X:
Disgraced “never-Trump” group The Lincoln Project accused the president of being a “communist.”
Progressive commentator Dean Withers said, “It’s official, we live in North Korea.”
Headquarters, formerly known as former Vice President Kamala Harris’s online campaign hub, “Kamala HQ,” also said the Trump administration’s move was “similar to Russia and North Korea.”
“America is becoming hell,” whined left-wing commentator Ed Krassenstein:
A viral post from “GOP L’s” falsely claimed the White House app “contains a location tracker with NO WAY to disable it.”
Failed New York Democrat House candidate Melanie D’Arrigo called the app “Trump administration spyware.”
In reality, the White House app has never transmitted users’ location, nor does it contain “spyware.”
Tech security firm NowSecure reported that its testing found no evidence of location data being collected or transmitted, despite the claims from left-wing personalities and politicians:
Recent reporting on the White House mobile app has overstated several security and privacy concerns by focusing on what the app could do rather than what it actually does in practice.
NowSecure analyzed the app using static and dynamic mobile application security testing. We found no evidence of unauthorized location tracking described in media coverage.
The app behaves like most modern mobile applications. It uses common third-party components and generally follows standard platform controls. It doesn’t present an unusual risk to users.
This is a good example of how easy it is to misread mobile app behavior without testing it in a real environment.
Speaking with Breitbart News White House correspondent Nick Gilbertson, White House Deputy Communications Director Kaelan Dorr responded to critics who have made up concerns about Trump TV and the app’s security.
“There’s a lot of criticism about the safety of the app and things like that. And these are all just fake news hoaxes,” Dorr said. “Quite frankly, a lot of the technology that we use to develop these things is on par with Fortune 500 companies,” he continued, naming the NBA and Tiffany as major brands that use the same technology for their apps.
“So, there’s nothing to be worried about,” Dorr added. “This app is incredible, and we’re going to work on integrating America.gov […] it’s about restoring the dignity of the American public, making sure everything’s in one place, you don’t have to go hunt for what you’re interested in or what you are looking for. We’re going to come to you, and it’s such a contrast with the previous administration where everyone had come begging and pleading for information about whether the president was even working at the time. They know the president’s working here.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.