According to Sweden’s Radio, defense employees are no longer permitted to download TikTok, and those who have the app on their phones must uninstall it. Other organizations, such as Region Västernorrland and Region Blekinge, have also banned the app for their employees due to concerns about Chinese government influence. The potential ban of TikTok in the US has been a hot topic, with CEO Show Chew recently meeting with Congress to answer questions about safety concerns and claims that Bytedance used the app to monitor journalists. Chew refuted these claims and stated that projects called “Texas” and “Europe” would protect user data.
Swedens radio writes that defense employees are no longer allowed to download the app, and that those who already have the app installed on their phones must now delete it.
As recently as Sunday banned Region Västernorrland its employees to use the app, as the region’s information security manager Mårten Frosth believes that there is great uncertainty about what opportunities the Chinese authorities actually have to influence Tiktok. Several authorities and regions have made similar decisions, among other things Region Blekinge which last week banned the app for its employees.
Prohibitions around Tiktok have been high on the agenda as the US considers possibly banning the app in the country. On Thursday, Tiktok’s CEO Show Chew met the US Congress, who for over five hours had to answer questions about everything from deaths linked to dangerous “challenges” to the newspaper Forbes revelation that Bytedance used Tiktok to monitor journalists.
The claim was refuted by Chew, who believes that the ongoing project “Texas” will protect American user data from transparency by moving it to servers in the United States, as project in Europe to protect European user data.