March 26, 2023 at 18:54 PM
The French government prohibits civil servants from installing and using “entertainment” apps such as TikTok on their work phones.
[China News Agency]The French government announced on March 24 local time that civil servants are prohibited from installing and using “entertainment” applications such as TikTok on their work mobile phones.
According to official information released on the same day, the ban was issued to government departments by binding instructions with immediate effect. Civil servants will have one month to remove the relevant apps they have installed from their work phones. The ban will not apply to personal devices of public servants.
France’s digital transformation minister, Barro, said the “entertainment” apps could hardly guarantee an “adequate level” of cybersecurity and data protection on government digital tools. In addition to TikTok, apps such as Candy Crush and Netflix are also affected by the ban, he said.
French Public Services Minister Grigny’s office clarified later in the day that “no specific security risk has been identified” in the apps covered by the latest ban.
Preliminary information disclosed by French officials shows that the banned applications include streaming services such as Netflix, entertainment applications such as TikTok, and social media programs such as Twitter. Civil servants who seek to apply the banned apps for projects such as government agency communications in the future will need to obtain “special permission” from their department.
French government spokesman Verand said this month that French government ministers cannot download apps such as Instagram or TikTok on their work phones. He added that the government was working on simplified policies for civil servants.
The United Kingdom and other countries have announced that government staff are prohibited from using the TikTok application on official mobile phones, but they have not introduced corresponding restrictions on related applications such as Netflix.