LONDON, United Kingdom March 19 ------ Britain said, it would ban TikTok on government phones with immediate effect, a move that follows other Western countries in barring the Chinese-owned video app over security concerns.
TikTok has come under increasing scrutiny due to fears that user data from the app owned by Beijing-based company Byte Dance could end up in the hands of the Chinese government, undermining Western security interests.
“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,” Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden said in a statement.
The British government had asked the National Cyber Security Centre to look at the potential vulnerability of government data from social media apps and risks around how sensitive information could be accessed and used.
Source: rappler.com