Belgium bans TikTok from government phones after US, EU

Brussels: Following the move by Europe and the U.S., Belgium has banned TikTok from government phones over worries about cybersecurity, privacy and misinformation. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Friday that the Belgian national security council had warned of the risks associated with the large amounts of data collected by TikTok, which is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, and the fact that the company is required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services. The Chinese-owned video-sharing app will be temporarily prohibited from devices owned or paid for by Belgium’s federal government for at least six months, according to a post on Alexander de Croo’s website. TikTok didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment. Owned by China’s ByteDance, the company has long maintained that it does not share data with the Chinese government and that its data is not held in China. TikTok unveiled new measures this week to ease concerns about protecting user data in Europe. But the European Union’s three main institutions and Denmark’s defence ministry have already ordered employees to remove the app from devices used for official business. Similar bans have been imposed in Canada and the U.S. The tussle over TikTok is part of a wider global rivalry between China and the U.S. and its Western allies over technological and economic supremacy. De Croo said Belgium’s ban was based on warnings from the state security service and its cybersecurity centre, which said the app could harvest user data and tweak algorithms to manipulate its news feed and content. They also warned that TikTok could be compelled to carry out spying for Beijing, he said, without being more specific. “We are in a new geopolitical context where influence and surveillance between states have shifted to the digital world," de Croo said in an online statement. “We must not be naive: TikTok is a Chinese company that today is obliged to cooperate with the intelligence services. This is the reality. Prohibiting its use on federal service devices is common sense.”

The European Commission and the European Parliament last month banned TikTok from staff phones due to growing concerns about the company, and whether China’s government could harvest users’ data or advance its interests.

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