Both the European Commission and Council of the EU have banned their staff from using TikTok on their work and personal devices with work-related apps installed.
Background
The latest sign of escalating tensions between Beijing and the West is the decision by the European Commission and Council of the EU to forbid personnel from accessing the Chinese social media app TikTok due to security concerns. Evidence that Chinese technology firms help the Communist Party and its intelligence services acquire large amounts of data around the world, with a special focus on high-value political and security targets, is alarming Western governments more and more.
On Thursday, the European Commission and the Council made the announcement that they had asked their workers to uninstall the TikTok app from any personal or work-related apps they had installed on their smartphones.
What’s happened?
All 32,000 employees of the Commission were instructed to remove TikTok from their work-related devices, as well as from any personal devices on which they may have the app loaded. If the staff members insist on keeping TikTok, they can alternatively remove work-related apps from their personal phones.
An email sent to staff read:
“To protect Commission’s data and increase its cybersecurity, the EC Corporate Management Board has decided to suspend the TikTok application on corporate devices and personal devices enrolled in the Commission mobile device service,”
Officials are required to uninstall the video-sharing app “at their earliest convenience” and before March 15. “As of 15 March, devices with the app installed will be considered non-compliant with the corporate environment,” the email read.
The Commission has chosen not to reveal the details that led them to the conclusion that the app poses serious cybersecurity and data threats to the EU executive.
The personnel will have about two weeks to abide by the suspension from TikTok.
According to a statement TikTok gave to POLITICO, the choice was “misguided.”
“We are disappointed with this decision, which we believe to be misguided and based on fundamental misconceptions,” said a TikTok spokesperson. “We have contacted the Commission to set the record straight and explain how we protect the data of the 125 million people across the EU who come to TikTok every month. We are surprised that the Commission did not contact us directly nor offer any explanation — we have requested a meeting”
What about the rest of the EU?
Four Dutch coalition parties want to take things a step further and demand that TikTok be prohibited on governmental phones. The Dutch government, under pressure from parliamentarians, has asked its intelligence services to determine if using TikTok on official phones constitutes a risk. It is the first European government to consider such a restriction.
As MPs sanctioned by China raised worries about data security in August of last year, the British parliament closed its TikTok account. Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, attacked the business in December, labeling it “deceptively innocent,” a source of “serious addiction” among users, and a vehicle for Russian misinformation.
Meanwhile, TikTok is under investigation by Ireland’s top European data protection regulator for potentially illegal data transfers to China in accordance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).