The Belgian federal government will ban employees, including ministers, from using TikTok on their work phones and computers. That reports the VRT. This is a temporary ban that will be reviewed after six months. Government employees are also advised not to install the app on personal devices.
Earlier this week, the Belgian intelligence services advised the Belgian government to remove the app from work devices, because there are suspicions that ByteDance, the Chinese parent company behind TikTok, would share data about users with the Chinese government.
“The geopolitical context has evolved very much in recent months. The threat posed today is much higher than a year ago,” said Belgian Prime Minister De Croo in a statement. “There is Chinese legislation that could make it possible for Chinese security services to view information that TikTok collects, for example from federal officials. It is a potential danger and risk that we do not want to take.”
The Netherlands is also looking into a ban on TikTok on the phones of government officials. All four coalition parties are in favor of such a ban. The EU (the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council) has already banned the app, and countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and Denmark have also banned the app for government employees.