The icon for the video sharing TikTok app is seen on a smartphone on Feb. 28. British authorities stated Thursday that they’re banning the Chinese language-owned app from authorities cell phones on safety grounds.
Matt Slocum/AP
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Matt Slocum/AP
The icon for the video sharing TikTok app is seen on a smartphone on Feb. 28. British authorities stated Thursday that they’re banning the Chinese language-owned app from authorities cell phones on safety grounds.
Matt Slocum/AP
LONDON — British authorities stated Thursday that they’re banning the Chinese language-owned video-sharing app TikTok from authorities cell phones on safety grounds, following comparable strikes by the U.S. and European Union.
Cupboard Workplace minister Oliver Dowden instructed Parliament that the ban applies with fast impact to work telephones and different gadgets utilized by authorities ministers and civil servants. He described the ban as a “precautionary transfer,” and stated it doesn’t apply to private telephones and gadgets.
“Given the actual threat round authorities gadgets, which can include delicate data, it’s each prudent and proportionate to limit the usage of sure apps, significantly in the case of apps the place a considerable amount of knowledge may be saved and accessed,” Dowden instructed British lawmakers.
The U.S. authorities mandated final month that workers of federal companies need to delete TikTok from all government-issued cell gadgets. Congress, the White Home, U.S. armed forces and greater than half of U.S. states already had banned the app.
The European Union, Belgium and others have additionally briefly banned the app from worker telephones.
The strikes had been prompted by rising issues that TikTok’s mother or father firm, ByteDance, would give consumer knowledge comparable to looking historical past and site to the Chinese language authorities, or push propaganda and misinformation on its behalf.
The corporate has insisted that such issues are based mostly on “misinformation” and stated it was taking steps to spice up safety of consumer knowledge from the U.Ok. and Europe.
“We consider these bans have been based mostly on elementary misconceptions and pushed by wider geopolitics, during which TikTok and our thousands and thousands of customers within the U.Ok, play no half,” the corporate stated. “We stay dedicated to working with the federal government to handle any issues however must be judged on details and handled equally to our rivals.”
China accused the USA on Thursday of spreading disinformation and suppressing TikTok following stories that the Biden administration was calling for the short-form video service’s Chinese language house owners to promote their stakes within the standard app.
Final yr, Britain’s Parliament shut down its TikTok account, which was supposed to achieve youthful audiences, simply days after its launch after lawmakers raised issues.
