European Commission Bans Employees from Using TikTok

The European Commission has prohibited its employees from using the Chinese TikTok app on their mobile phones due to security concerns. This was reported by Le Monde, citing a representative of the European Commission.

According to Euractiv, on the morning of February 23, employees of the European Commission received a letter demanding that TikTok be removed not only from work devices but also from personal smartphones by March 15, if those devices have applications used for work purposes.

The TikTok ban is being implemented to protect the Commission's data and enhance its cybersecurity, as stated in the letter. Employees who do not remove the app by March 15 will not be able to access corporate email and Skype, the letter warned.

Employees wishing to keep TikTok on their personal devices must remove work-related apps from their devices.

A TikTok spokesperson called the Commission's decision erroneous and “based on fundamentally incorrect assumptions” in comments to Politico and Euractiv. “We have reached out to the Commission to clarify and explain how we protect the data of 125 million people in the EU who access TikTok each month,” said the service representative.

Earlier in February, the Dutch government tasked intelligence agencies with investigating the risks of using TikTok on government phones. In 2022, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio proposed a bill to ban the use of TikTok on government devices, stating that the Chinese app is used “to manipulate information and influence elections.” In August, Rubio's bill was unanimously approved by the Senate.

Last year, the UK Parliament decided to close its TikTok account after lawmakers raised concerns about data security. In November, TikTok released an updated privacy policy for countries in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. It stated that the company's employees have remote access to user data, but TikTok does not collect precise information on the location of users in Europe.