The European Commission and Council of the EU have banned staff from using TikTok on government-issued devices for cybersecurity reasons.

Citing growing concerns about the Chinese-owned video sharing app, the policy-making institutions told a combined workforce of about 35,100 workers this week to remove TikTok from official handsets, as well as personal phones with access to EU Council services.

"To protect [the] Commission's data and increase its cybersecurity, the EC Corporate Management Board has decided to suspend the TikTok application on corporate devices and personal devices enrolled in the Commission mobile device service," according to an email published by Politico.

Officials are required to remove the app "at their earliest convenience"—as long as that's before March 15, at which point "devices with the app installed will be considered non-compliant with the corporate environment," the memo said. Miss the 2.5-week deadline and certain applications—like the Commission email and Skype for Business—will be bricked.

"The measure aims to protect the Commission against cybersecurity threats and actions which may be exploited for cyberattacks against the corporate environment of the commission," EU spokesperson Sonya Gospodinova said in a statement to the BBC.

This is the first time the Commission has suspended staff use of an app, Politico notes. The decision comes after "careful" analysis, according to EU spokespeople, who said the restriction is temporary and under "constant review and possible reassessments."

The US government has been locked in battle with TikTok for years, states and federal agencies have banned the app from government-issued devices, citing "possible spying" by China.

In December, an internal ByteDance investigation found that TikTok employees improperly accessed the TikTok user data of two journalists and spied on them.

Still, TikTok called this week's full app ban "misguided" and said it's contacted the Commission to "set the record straight" and request a meeting.

By: DocMemory
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