The US had demanded the owner Bytedance to sell the app a day before the ban.
Tiktok raises concerns in the authorities. Jakub Porzycki
The British government decided to ban the use of the Chinese Tiktok on official phones. The reason is security concerns, and how the application collects information about the user. The decision was made on Thursday. About that reported The Guardian.
– Sensitive information about official activities is of paramount importance, so the application is prohibited on office phones. We will continue to keep an eye on other applications that collect data, the member of the Government Council responsible for the cyber security of the administration Oliver Dowden said in the government announcement.
According to Dowden, the ban is a preventive measure for cyber security, and the ban does not affect citizens. The ban was imposed because users have to hand over a lot of data to the application, such as phone contact information and information revealing the user’s location.
Despite the ban, the use of the application is allowed on the personal phones of the authorities.
China accuses the decision of being politicized
The representative of the Chinese embassy was nervous about the ban and accused the British government of acting contrary to the facts and that the ban was politicized.
A representative of the app said they were disappointed with the decision, and claimed the ban was based on a misunderstanding and geopolitics. Tiktok said that it has started making a comprehensive plan on how to protect the data of European users in the future.
Tiktok has been the subject of concern for information security experts in several countries, and it is suspected that the data collected by the application will end up in the hands of the Chinese government. The use of the application on office phones is prohibited, for example, by officials of the EU and the USA.
The United States filed a sales claim
The British ban was made shortly after the United States had demanded that the Chinese owner Bytedance sell the app under the threat of a nationwide ban. It was reported on Wednesday The Wall Street Journal.
The US authorities feel that the application threatens national security. Chinese legislation allows companies to hand over user data to the administration upon request.
CEO of Tiktok Shou Zi Chew told that the sale would not solve security problems. The company has said that it is investing 1.5 billion dollars to improve information security in the United States, and is working to ensure that the Chinese administration does not get access to the information of American users of the application.
According to Tiktok, 60 percent of the company is owned by international investors, 20 percent by their employees and 20 percent by their founders.
Chew will visit Washington to discuss the situation next week.
Tiktok, owned by China’s Bytedance, is a social media application especially popular with young people, which has approx 800 million users.