The United Kingdom has banned tye short video platform TikTok from Government devices.
The UK is the latest country to ban the app from government devices.
A “precautionary ban” was placed on the app after a security review was ordered by U.K. ministers to know whether Government data could be compromised from social networks installed on work devices.
Thehowever stated that employees can use TikTok on personal devices.
Oliver Dowden, secretary of state and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in a statement said, “the security of sensitive Government information must come first, so today we are banning this app on Government devices,”
“The use of other data-extracting apps will be kept under review. Restricting the use of TikTok on Government devices is a prudent and proportionate step following advice from our cyber security experts.” he added.
UK’s ban of the app isn’t surprising as it’s coming less than a year after the U.K. Parliament closed its official TikTok account politicians raised concerns that sensitive data could be passed to TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, which is based in China, as devices like TikTok requires permissions like, contacts, content, and location data to function.
The U.S. House of Representatives banned the app in December, while the European Union and Canada issued blanket delete notices for TikTok on Government devices last month. Belgium has also announced a ban week, while the Netherlands is considering to ban the app too.
TikTok took the world by storm and amassed over 1 billion users in record time.
It has also become the go-to app for people who want to tap into younger demographics as the app is more popular with them.
