UK bans TikTok on government devices, following US and EU

TAfter Congress passed a similar ban, the United Kingdom announced that TikTok would be banned from being installed on government devices.

Oliver Dowden, Cabinet Office Minister, stated that the country would ban the application from government-owned devices following a review of it by British cybersecurity professionals. The app’s privacy practices, and affiliations to the Chinese government, were the reasons for the ban.

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“The security of sensitive government information must come first, so today, we are banning this app on government devices. The use of other data-extracting apps will be kept under review,” Dowden made the statement in a news release.

Dowden stated that the ban will not apply to personal devices, but only government-owned devices. There will be exemptions for TikTok use on government-owned devices, but they will not be available. “only be granted by security teams on a case-by-case basis, with ministerial clearance as appropriate, and with security mitigations put in place,” The government stated.

Months after Congress banned the app’s installation in December 2022, the U.K. ban was imposed. Legislators are currently debating which legislation is required to restrict TikTok’s presence in the United States. Several bills have been submitted to ban the app.

TikTok would be banned by a bill introduced by Senator Marco Rubio (Republican-FL) as well as Rep. Mike Gallagher, (Republican-WI). A bill by Sens. A bill from Sens.

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The European Union also forbade employees from installing the app onto personal or corporate devices.

TikTok has attempted to reduce these bans in America through “Project Texas,” An effort to secure U.S. data. Recent statements from the White House to TikTok indicated that such efforts would not suffice and that ByteDance, its parent company, would either have to sell its stakes or face a ban.