The European Commission has banned staff from using the Chinese social media app TikTok over security concerns, in the latest example of growing strains between Beijing and the West.
Western governments are increasingly alarmed by evidence that Chinese technology companies assist the Communist Party and its intelligence services in gathering vast amounts of data all over the world — with a particular focus on high-value political and security targets.
A senior official told POLITICO that all staff were ordered on Thursday morning to remove TikTok from their official devices and that they must also remove the app from their personal devices if they have any work-related apps installed.
Alternatively, the staff members can delete work-related apps from their personal phones if they insist on keeping TikTok.
“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,” said the email sent to staff on Thursday morning.
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 a “bring your own device” policy that senior officials describe as “horrible” from a security perspective.
The other institutions of the European Union, including the Council and the Parliament, are likely to follow up eventually with a ban on the Chinese app, although it may take much longer for the Parliament in particular to be able to implement such a policy.
The ban is likely to be announced publicly at the Commission’s regular midday briefing.
‘Deceptively innocent’
The U.S. — where TikTok has faced continued pressure — moved in December to ban the app for all federal government devices, due to fears about potential spying by China, where TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is based. Several states in the last week also implemented their own restrictions. TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew is also due to testify for the first time before the U.S. Congress on March 23 over potential risks to U.S. national security.
Around the EU, government scrutiny of TikTok, which is regularly used by around 125 million Europeans, has increased in recent months. European Commission officials warned TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew on his first visit to Brussels to respect European laws. Yet, aside from public authorities in the Netherlands who were told to suspend use of the app, most EU countries and Brussels had until now mostly shied away from banning the use of TikTok.
Last August, the British parliament did shut down its TikTok account after MPs sanctioned by China raised concerns about data security. French President Emmanuel Macron in December hit out at the company, calling it “deceptively innocent” and a cause of “real addiction” among users, as well as a source of Russian disinformation.
TikTok is also being investigated by its lead European data protection authority in Ireland for potentially unlawful transfers of European citizens’ data to China under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
TikTok admitted in early November that some of its China-based employees could access European TikTok user data. In a bid to assuage fears, the company announced last week it was looking into keeping European users’ information in three data centers in Europe.
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