Due to concerns about Chinese eavesdropping, the European Commission has prohibited officials from using the TikTok video-sharing app.
Employees were informed that if they did not remove the Chinese-owned social media website by March 15, they would lose access to their email accounts and video conferencing systems.
“To protect the Commission’s data and increase its cybersecurity, the EC [European Commission] Corporate Management Board has decided to suspend the TikTok application on corporate devices and personal devices enrolled in the Commission mobile device services,” bosses told staff in an email message.
TikTok is allegedly intended to collect more personal data than any other social media app or messaging service, according to experts.
Potential security risk
The platform has twice as many trackers built into it than the industry average, according to Internet 2.0, a cybersecurity firm.
This has sparked fears within Western governments that TikTok poses a potential security risk because of concerns over its Chinese parent company’s close relationship with Beijing.
The EU ban will also apply to its staffs’ personal phones if they have work-related applications installed on them.
It follows a decision by the US Congress to restrict TikTok usage on federal government devices.
The Dutch intelligence agency has also launched a probe into the risks posed by government workers with the app installed on their mobile phones.
Time for UK Government ban?
But as it stands, no European government has followed the US lead in officially banning the app.
Last year, TikTok admitted that the personal data of their users could be accessed in the Chinese headquarters.
At the time, Forbes reported the application was being used to spy on journalists covering its parent company ByteDance.
On Thursday, TikTok said that a decision by the European Commission to ban the video-sharing app on its staff’s official devices was based on mistaken ideas about its platform.
“We are disappointed with this decision, which we believe to be misguided and based on fundamental misconceptions,” a spokesperson for the Chinese-owned company said, after the Commission cited data protection concerns.