White House might ban staff from using personal mobile phones: report

The White House is considering banning staffers from using personal mobile phones while at work, five Trump administration officials told Bloomberg News.

One official told Bloomberg the ban wasn’t related to leaks to the media, but instead stems from concerns about cybersecurity.

The proposed ban would apply to everyone working in the Executive Office of the President.

Staffers worry that a ban would mean they couldn’t reach their friends and family while on the job, according to Bloomberg. White House-issued phones aren’t able to send text messages, and staffers are already blocked from sites like Google Hangouts and Gmail, meaning many alternate forms of communication aren’t available.

Employees are already required to leave their phones in cubbies while attending meetings that involve sensitive or classified information.

Politico reported in August that chief of staff John Kelly’s phone had been breached as far back as December, but the White House said that Kelly hasn’t used the phone since January and uses a government phone while at the White House. 

{mosads}Leaks of information have bedeviled the Trump administration from the start.

Former press secretary Sean Spicer reportedly required that staff randomly turn over their phones for searches to see if they were leaking information to the press.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a government-wide crackdown on leaks in August.

Sessions said during his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee earlier this month that the Justice Department was investigating 27 leaks of classified information.

“We intend to get to the bottom of these leaks,” he said during his testimony. “I think it has reached epidemic proportions. It cannot be allowed to continue.”

– This story was updated at 2:35 p.m.