In the Netherlands, government infrastructure is advised to avoid using TikTok amid growing concern in the EU. and the US due to potential security risks on a Chinese-owned platform.
Dutch ministries and agencies are largely following the recommendation to stop government-level communication through the platform, as well as advertising, two government officials told Politico.
Meanwhile, the app is growing in popularity in the Netherlands, where it has about 3.5 million users.
In early November, TikTok admitted that some employees of the Chinese company ByteDance were able to access the data of European users of the platform. The company also came under the microscope in the US for a report by Forbes magazine in December that officials had access to whereabouts of journalists covering TikTok-related issues.
In the Netherlands, the Ministry of General Affairs has advised against suspending government use of TikTok until the platform changes its data protection policy. The recommendation follows a much stricter move by the US government, which has banned the use of TikTok on government-owned devices since December.
Requests to send data to China
In recent months, Dutch officials have sought to strengthen ties with Washington, while the US has pushed for more checks before exporting and selling sensitive technology to China, including equipment made by Dutch chipmaker ASML.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met with US President Joe Biden this month, where they discussed, among other things, how to deal with the problems facing China.
“The Dutch policy on TikTok, which is essentially a pause and not a ban, is primarily aimed at stopping the use of TikTok for the purpose of communication,” a spokesman for the Ministry of General Affairs said after government officials were absent instructed to remove the app from phones.
The company is already under investigation for sending user data from the European Union to China. One of the video app’s fiercest critics in Europe is none other than French President Emmanuel Macron, who called TikTok “deceptively innocent,” a source of serious addiction and a source of Russian disinformation.
Source: Politico
Source: Kathimerini
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