TikTok on the work phone of government officials is banned, but why?
The State Secretary for Digitization, Alexandra van Huffelen, prohibits the use of TikTok on the work phones of civil servants. Mark Rutte, among others, will therefore no longer be allowed to make “cool” campaign videos on TikTok from his work phone. Why is this?
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TikTok ban
Government officials will soon no longer be allowed to have TikTok on their work phone. At the moment there were already concerns and government officials are already advised against it, but in the short term it will really be banned for them. Alexandra van Huffelen – State Secretary for Digitization – reports the following on the website of the central government today: ”The central government must be able to do its work safely, also via its mobile devices. Recent parliamentary questions and international developments have led us to make a careful assessment that goes further than advising against one application. We opt for a structural solution that civil servants of the national government can trust in their work in a digital world.”
TikTok is not specifically mentioned in this, but it is confirmed to NOS that it is about TikTok. Van Huffelen is further following the advice of the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD). They advise against using all apps, which are managed by countries with an offensive cyber program aimed at the Netherlands, on sensitive devices. You can think of devices that are used by government officials.
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Why exactly?
The great fear of TikTok is mainly caused by the potential interference of the Chinese government. TikTok is being developed by ByteDance, a Chinese technology company. In addition to managing, designing and developing the app, they also make TikTok’s algorithms. It is known that the Chinese government would like to have access to the latter. TikTok denies that they also provide this access.
However, ByteDance also makes other apps that must comply with Chinese censorship laws and about 300 TikTok employees were previously active for the Chinese state media. So there could be a potential security risk. TikTok has denied all this several times. Now it has responded again. They report the following to the NOS:
TikTok is not controlled by any state or government. Both TikTok and our parent company – ByteDance – are not Chinese owned and the Chinese government does not have any access to TikTok user data. We want to be judged on facts rather than fears and treated equally.”
Also a TikTok ban in America
There is a threat of a total ban on TikTok in the United States. The Biden administration wants the Chinese owners of TikTok to sell their interests. TikTok reports that this makes little sense. However, according to Bloomberg, it seems that TikTok will want to split off from ByteDance. You can read more about all this in the article below.
What do you think of these developments? Let us know in the comments.
