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The executive arm of the European Union (EU), the European Commission (EC), has ordered its staff removed stratospherically popular social media platform TikTok from official smartphones and devices, citing security concerns.
Per BBC news (opens in new tab)comes the dictation, which has been given March 15, 2023 as a deadline, as TikTok remains under Western pressure due to allegations of its owners, the Chinese company ByteDance, sending international user data to the state government, which it may be forced to do by local laws.
Despite ByteDance’s persistent claims that it doesn’t handle data this way, which would amount to TikTok being essentially a mass surveillance tool, this should raise fears around identity theftand the general inviolability of an individual’s privacy online.
TikTok, the EU and you
Sonya Gospodinova, an EU spokesperson, said the decision was made by the EC’s governing board.
“[It] aims to protect the Commission against cyberthreats and actions that can be exploited for cyber-attacks against the Commission’s business environment.”
Employees who do not comply with the new rule are warned that they will be banned from official EC applications, including those from the EC email customerand the video conferencing software Skype for Business. Given that the EC employs about 32,000 people, that could be disruptive.
Despite admitting last year that TikTok has access to European user data, ByteDance strongly denies the need for the bans imposed by world governments, including the US And The Netherlands have established, or have publicly contemplated establishing, in recent years.
As the BBC notes, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew claimed in January that the social media platform was working on a “robust” system to securely handle European user data, following disapproval from EU officials.
A US-wide ban on the service was thought about in 2020, although this seems to be resolved. a ban across India entered into force that same year.