• The France announced Friday the immediate ban on recreational apps, including TikTok, from the devices of state officials.
  • Before Paris, the United States or the United Kingdom have already taken such measures against the Chinese application suspected of spying and manipulation on behalf of Beijing.
  • Back on a complicated week for the video platform very popular among young people.

The TikTok app increasingly marginalized. The Chinese application has been subject for several weeks to a boycott of many Western institutions fearing risks related to cybersecurity. After the White House, the European Commission, the Canadian and British governments, the French government on Friday banned the download and use of the Chinese social network on the business phones of 2.5 million civil servants. A look back at a complicated week for TikTok.

End of recreational apps in France, TikTok in the lead

While the government has not yet drawn up a specific list of banned applications, it is targeting so-called "recreational" applications. Among these is "the triptych applications of games like Candy Crush, streaming like Netflix and recreational like TikTok," says the entourage of the Minister of the Public Service, Stanislas Guerini. This decision comes the result of an analysis conducted by the National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (Anssi) and the Interministerial Directorate of Digital (Dinum).

These applications present "risks in terms of cybersecurity and data protection of public officials and administration," insists the entourage of the minister. Only a few derogations, in particular for institutional communication purposes, are foreseen. If the ban comes into force immediately, no sanctions have yet been imposed. Nor does it apply to the personal telephones of civil servants.

Eventful hearing in the US Congress

The day before this decision of the France, the boss of the application, Shou Zi Chew, had to face the remonstrances of the members of the US Congress for more than five hours. He hardly tried to defend his application, in the face of intractable American elected officials, who had mostly condemned the platform in advance. Several bills, supported right and left, are in the pipeline to ban TikTok, which has 150 million monthly US users. The White House has hinted that if the platform remains in the fold of ByteDance, it will be banned.

According to the elected officials, the Chinese Communist Party uses TikTok for espionage and manipulation. Shou Chew promised that by the end of the year, all information related to the 150 million American users would be managed only from servers of the Texas group Oracle, located in the United States.

But he had to acknowledge that the platform still has old data accessible by Chinese employees. "The Chinese government does not own or control ByteDance. It's a private company," he insisted. Rep. Anna Eshoo called her arguments "grotesque." "I don't believe there really is a private sector in China," she said, referring to China's law that requires companies in the country to share their data if Beijing asks them to do so.

Ban in the British Parliament

On the same day, Thursday, it was the British Parliament that announced the ban of the social network, following in the footsteps of a measure taken by the British government. "Following the government's decision to ban TikTok from government devices, the House of Commons and Lords committees decided that TikTok would be blocked from all parliamentary devices and the parliamentary network," a Parliament spokesperson said. A measure already implemented by the American and Canadian governments, or the European Commission.

The British Parliament had deleted last August its pilot account on TikTok, after the fears expressed by some MPs on the security of the data. More recently, the BBC earlier this week encouraged its employees to remove the app from their work devices.

TikTok not recommended in the Netherlands and Norway

Also in this logic of protecting against "an increased risk of espionage", the Dutch government on Tuesday advised its officials not to use TikTok on their business devices, as well as other applications managed by countries with an "offensive cyber program", such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Eventually, the government wants all civil servants' work phones to be configured so that only pre-authorized applications, software or features can be installed.

The discourse is more or less the same in Norway. "In their risk assessment (...), the intelligence services identify Russia and China as the main risk factors for Norwegian security interests," explained Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl... yet very active on TikTok. She on Tuesday advised officials against installing the Chinese app on their business devices.

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