France has banned officials from using the TikTok app, adding to the list of countries that have already implemented such a ban, including the US, UK, Belgium, New Zealand and Canada. In addition, France has introduced a ban on the use of government officials of others “Entertainment” Apps like Twitter, Netflix and Candy Crush. It should be noted that the ban only applies to official mobile devices and does not apply to personal devices.
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According to Public Service Minister Stanislas Guerini, these applications pose cybersecurity risks that can lead to the loss of data from both civil servants and government agencies.
The government has not provided an accurate list of banned uses. Guerini only noted that there may be some exceptions, that is, this does not prevent organizations from posting content on social networks. The ban comes into effect immediately, but penalties for breaking the rules can be imposed “management level”‘ the ministry said.
As in other countries, the French government’s ban stems from concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) to release confidential information about government employees.
TikTok has firmly refused to cooperate with the Chinese government. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told a US House of Representatives committee this week that ByteDance “not an agent of China” and that US user data will not be available to service personnel in other countries until the migration project from Oracle’s own data centers to Oracle’s server infrastructure is completed later this year.
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