[News] TikTok: UK ministers banned from using Chinese-owned app on government phones

[Blackfire]

• British government ministers have been banned from using Chinese-owned social media app TikTok on their work phones and devices on security grounds.

  The government fears sensitive data held on official phones could be accessed by the Chinese government.

  Cabinet Minister Oliver Dowden said the ban was a "precautionary" move but would come into effect immediately.

  TikTok has strongly denied allegations that it hands users' data to the Chinese government.

  Theo Bertram, the app's vice-president of government relations and public policy in Europe, told the BBC it believed the decision was based on "more on geopolitics than anything else".

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  We asked to be judged not on the fears that people have, but on the facts," he added.

  Mr Dowden said he would not advise the public against using TikTok, but they should always "consider each social media platform's data policies before downloading and using them".

  Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had been under pressure from senior MPs to follow the US and the European Union in barring the video-sharing app from official government devices

• But government departments - and individual ministers - have embraced TikTok as a way of getting their message out to younger people.

• Use of the app has exploded in recent years, with 3.5 billion downloads worldwide.

  Its success comes from how easy it is to record short videos with music and fun filters, but also from its algorithm which is good at serving up videos which appeal to individual users.

  It is able to do this because it gathers a lot of information on users - including their age, location, device and even their typing rhythms - while its cookies track their activity elsewhere on the internet.

  US-based social media sites also do this but TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance has faced claims of being influenced by Beijing.

• Hours before the ban was announced the Ministry of Defence (MoD) uploaded a video of a Challenger 2 tank, a type being supplied to Ukraine, to its TikTok account.

  The MoD said it would continue to use the app "to promote the work of the Armed Forces and to communicate our support to Ukraine". The department's sensitive data is "held on a separate system", it added.

• The Welsh government has also banned TikTok from the work phones of ministers and civil servants.

  In Edinburgh, a spokesperson for the Scottish government said officials were liasing with the Cabinet Office "as we consider the need for further action".

  In a statement earlier, TikTok said the UK government's decision was based on "fundamental misconceptions".

  "We remain committed to working with the government to address any concerns but should be judged on facts and treated equally to our competitors," a spokesman added

  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64975672