A new list of applications and hardware will be prohibited at UTA following Gov. Greg Abbott’s order, according to an email from the Office of Information Technology and Information Security Office on Wednesday.
In the Jan. 31 statement, Abbott banned the use of artificial intelligence and social media apps affiliated with the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party on government-issued devices.
“State agencies and employees responsible for handling critical infrastructure, intellectual property and personal information must be protected from malicious espionage operations by the Chinese Communist Party,” Abbott said in the proclamation.
UTA faculty, staff and student employees must ensure prohibited technologies are not installed on personal devices used for university business, chief information officer Deepika Chalemela said in an email. This includes accessing administrative or business-critical systems, processing university data or handling sensitive information.
General academic access to student-facing systems like Canvas, MyMav, UTA Mobile and Microsoft Teams are not subject to the policy, Chalemela said.
All devices connected to UTA’s network are subject to network-based restrictions that prevent access to prohibited technologies, she said. Additionally, university-owned devices are monitored for compliance.
Faculty, staff and student employees are responsible for compliance and violations will be addressed through the appropriate university administrative and disciplinary processes.
“The policy itself remains unchanged, including its enforcement mechanisms and overall intent. However, the scope has expanded to include additional technologies that have been identified as security risks,” Chalemela said. “The same restrictions that previously applied to TikTok now extend to the newly added prohibited technologies.”
The offices provided a model security plan of guidelines for university-owned devices and personal devices belonging to faculty, students, staff, and any locations where sensitive information could be accessed.
Abbott’s directive does allow policy exceptions if these technologies are required for specific business needs. According to the statement, UTA has requested exceptions for teaching and research, pending approval from the UT System.
The statement said UTA is taking steps to address vulnerabilities presented by the technologies. Measures taken will help protect information contained in the university’s network and infrastructure from potential international government surveillance risks.
The university’s Prohibited Technologies Security Policy was created after Abbott’s direction in 2023 for all state agencies to develop a policy due to growing concerns with video-sharing platform TikTok. He claimed the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., could be used to collect and share user data with the Chinese Communist Party, according to previous Shorthorn reporting.
TikTok became unavailable to American users Jan. 18, following the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to uphold the bill forcing ByteDance Ltd. to sell the app. Access was restored the following day when President Donald Trump promised to sign an executive order Jan. 20 to delay the ban by an additional 75 days.
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