European parliament to ban staff using TikTok

The European parliament has told staff it will be banning Chinese social media app TikTok from work devices over what it described as concerns over data security.

The ban follows a similar restriction by the European Commission last week.

Internet access to the social network will be blocked across devices including computers, tablets and mobiles from 20 March, a letter sent by the parliament’s Directorate General for Innovation and Technological Support (DG ITEC) to some 8,000 civil servants and other staff.

The letter also strongly recommended that staff members remove TikTok from their personal devices.

The European Commission announced last week that staff will have until 15 March to uninstall the app from their work devices. A similar move has recently been taken by the European Council.

TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is based in the People’s Republic of China, has been targeted by a number of Western governments, who warn that the app could allow Beijing to harvest data from users across the world.