Why did the European Commission just ban TikTok from its 32,000 employees?

They have until March 15 to delete the application, otherwise they will be denied access to certain professional tools.

The mood is not good between the West and Chinese technology companies. The latter have been accused for several years of providing data relating to the use of their products to the Xi Jinping government, even from abroad. If this represents a risk for the privacy of users, it is also a real national security issue for government authorities.

A social network that raises many concerns

This is why the devices of thousands of European Commission employees will gain some storage space by offloading TikTok. The application of the Chinese company ByteDance will have to be removed by mid-March, both on the functional equipment and on the personal devices of the employees on which applications and programs intended for professional activities are installed.

If TikTok is particularly targeted, it is because of its opaque operation, which raises many concerns about the use of user data and potential instrumentalization by the Chinese authorities. These fears are all the more justified as ByteDance admitted to having transmitted European user data to China in 2020. Revelation followed two years later by a case of espionage of journalists from Forbes magazine, who were then investigating the application. Ironically, the Chinese company said it was disappointed with the European Commission’s decision, adding: ” We [la] believe erroneous and based on misconceptions “.

A political trend that is gaining momentum in the West

The Commission is not the only European body looking into the matter. Parliament is already assessing all possible data breaches related to TikTok before making possible recommendations. These could have an important impact at the level of the Member States themselves, which could be invited to follow suit. This is also what the European Council, the body bringing together the heads of state of the EU, has already done.

Across the Atlantic, in the United States, Congress and many states have already banned their employees from using TikTok. By the end of 2020, the US Senate had passed a bill to ban the app on all federally owned devices, and it still needs to be approved by the House of Representatives.

Source : The world