White House To Ban Use Of Personal Mobile Phones At Work

White House employees will be banned from using personal mobile phones when they are at work, with effect from Friday, according to a report in Bloomberg News.

Chief of Staff John Kelly issued the instruction, stating the step was being taken due to security reasons.

Though President Donald Trump has repeatedly complained about press leaks ever since he took office, according to employees at the White House, the ban on mobile phones has nothing to do with those leaks.

However, some of the employees expressed their concern over the ban, explaining that they will not be able to contact their family or friends in case of any emergency. According to the employees, they will also be cut-off from their children all through their working hours.

According to the Bloomberg report, the employees who spoke on condition of anonymity said that since too many devices are connected to the wireless network of the White House, it is assumed that personal cell phones are not that secured compared to the ones provided by the federal government.

Among the employees, there were some who disagreed with the decision of barring them from using their personal phones at workplace citing reasons that they cannot use their work phones for personal use. Besides, those work phones are not enabled for sending text messages.

According to the staffers, text messages are the simplest way to reach out to their families, friends, and relatives while at work. They said they could message if something was important even if they were in some meetings.

With the ban of personal phones, the employees will now not be able to access their personal mails as well as the computer network at the White House keeps certain websites, including Gmail and Google Hangouts, blocked. They used to access those sites on their personal phones, but with the ban it won't be possible.

Earlier, in the year 2001 when George W. Bush took office as the president of the United States, he barred employees from wearing denim jeans at the Oval Office of the White House.

The move was intended to retain the dormant dress code of the White House, reported the Mental Floss.

Former President Bill Clinton had banned smoking at the White House during his presidential term.