On Thursday, European Commission staff were ordered to delete the TikTok app from all devices they use for work. Employees also have to choose whether to keep TikTok or any work apps and documents on their private smartphone: both cannot remain.
The elimination of the Chinese-owned app will serve to “protect the Commission’s data and increase its cyber security”, according to the email sent to staff. TikTok, which belongs to the Chinese company ByteDance, allows to some employees who work in China to consult user data, although it has always denied that the Chinese government has access to it. It has shown in the past though at least in one case to be able to use the data in its possession to understand which of its employees had spoken about the company to the press, also consulting the IP addresses – that is, the strings of numbers that identify a specific internet connection – of various journalists.
The European Commission is not the only institution concerned about the fact that one of the most used social networks in the world, which collects huge amounts of data to profile users and present them with advertising and content that matches their interests as closely as possible, is Chinese owned. At the end of December, the United States they had banned TikTok from all devices used for work by the federal government’s 4 million employees, with limited exceptions for law enforcement and cybersecurity researchers. And in January, the Dutch Ministry of General Affairs advised all people working for the government to “suspend the use of TikTok until the platform adjusts its data protection policy”.
Although the vast majority of the most used sites and applications in the West in the last twenty years belong to US companies which over time have often shown little attention to the treatment of their users’ personal data, according to TikTok critics the difference lies in the fact that Chinese companies have a much closer relationship with their government than American ones. In the context of the growing affirmation of China’s economy and political influence in the world, various Western governments and institutions are deciding to intervene.
In the case of the European Commission, the order is also part of an internal cybersecurity problem within the institution. According to the magazine specializing in European politics Politicothe Commission systematically requires its employees to use personal devices to carry out their work, although this approach is considered to be very problematic from an IT security point of view.