European Commission bans TikTok from its employees’ gadgets
Feb. 23 (UPI) — The European Fee, the govt arm of the European Union, introduced Thursday that TikTok would be banned from staff gadgets.
The commission said in a statement that it made the decision to “suspend” the use of TikTok on organizational and particular gadgets to shield towards “cybersecurity threats and actions which might be exploited for cyber-attacks towards the corporate environment of the commission.”
“The evaluate is in line with the commission’s rigorous inside cybersecurity guidelines for use of mobile equipment for do the job-connected communications,” the assertion reads.
The information comes amid developing fears about China’s influence over the social media platform’s dad or mum company, ByteDance.
TikTok said it experienced requested a conference “to established the record straight.”
“The European Commission’s suspension of TikTok on corporate products is misguided and based mostly on essential misconceptions,” Caroline Greer, head of general public plan at TikTok, mentioned on Twitter.
“We are continuing to greatly enhance our approach to details security — establishing three knowledge centers in Europe to retail store user information locally further cutting down staff access to data and minimizing info flows outdoors of Europe.”
Greer’s responses occur following the corporation disclosed just after a privacy plan update in November that TikTok workforce could see facts from European customers.
“We allow selected staff members within just our corporate group positioned in Brazil, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States remote access to TikTok European consumer data,” Elaine Fox, head of privateness for Europe at TikTok, reported in a assertion at the time.
The privacy plan applies to people in the “European Financial Spots, United Kingdom and Switzerland,” the business stated.
Previous President Donald Trump called for TikTok to be banned in 2020. In September, The New York Periods documented that negotiations were underway concerning TikTok and the administration of President Joe Biden to solve protection considerations.
In December, the U.S. Congress voted to block the application as some lawmakers have termed for it to be banned nationwide. EU commissioner Thierry Breton explained past month that TikTok could deal with a attainable ban in Europe if the business fails to comply with a new Electronic Expert services Act that will start this summer months.