France will ban the use of the Chinese-owned video platform TikTok on the work phones of government employees, the country’s public sector minister, Stanislas Guerini, tweeted.

“In order to ensure the cybersecurity of our services and government employees, the government has taken the decision to ban entertainment apps such as TikTok from government employees’ work phones,” the statement said.

The minister added that over the course of several weeks, several of France’s European and international partners have taken action to restrict or ban the download and installation of the TikTok app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance by their administrators.

Guerini said that entertainment apps do not have enough cybersecurity and data protection to be used on public sector equipment, and explained that the ban is effective immediately and that government agencies will enforce it.

According to him, there will be exceptions for professional reasons, such as communication within an institution or service.

Prohibitions in the Netherlands and Belgium

A few days ago, the Dutch Ministry of the Interior announced that Dutch civil servants would not be allowed to use TikTok on their work phones, and this month Belgium banned the use of TikTok on the phones and computers of federal civil servants.

At the same time, the Italian antitrust authority announced the opening of an investigation into TikTok on suspicion of not applying its own rules to control “dangerous content that encourages suicide, self-harm and eating disorders.”

The investigation by the Italian antitrust authority is directed against the Irish company TikTok Technology Limited, which is responsible for relations with Europeans.

TikTok is currently being targeted by many countries for national security reasons. Following the example of many Western powers – the United States, Canada and the European Union – the United Kingdom, in turn, banned the application on government devices.

Source: RES-IPE