The European Union Commission announced today (Thursday) that it has approved a new law that will prohibit elected officials and Commission employees from using the TikTok application on their government devices. The proposal arose against the background of the fear of damage to national security and the use of the Chinese application for espionage purposes.
The commission said that the decision was made “in order to increase the organization’s cyber security and prevent harm from network threats.” On the other hand, Tiktok’s management said that they are disappointed by the decision, which they claim is “wrong and based on an incorrect understanding of reality. We have contacted the European Commission to explain to them how we protect the privacy of the information of 125 million Tiktok users from all over the EU countries.”
The European law comes after a similar law was passed in the US last December. According to the law, members of the House of Representatives and the Senate will not be able to download the TikTok application to devices belonging to the organization, and must remove it from any device on which it is already installed. Several states, including Texas, George Yeh, Maryland, South Dakota, South Carolina and Nebraska have also banned the use of the app on government devices, and the US military has also banned its servicemen from using it on official devices.
The reason for these bans comes against the background of serious concerns for national security following the ownership of the Chinese parent company ByteDance. US government officials continue to claim that the Chinese government may force the company to hand over information it collects about users.