The application is increasingly controversial in many countries and institutions. In Norway, Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl on Tuesday advised officials against installing TikTok on their business devices. This recommendation, which echoes several instructions, or even bans, pronounced in other countries, is motivated by fears of espionage and also applies to the encrypted messaging system of Russian origin Telegram.

"In their risk assessment (...), the intelligence services identify Russia and China as the main risk factors for Norwegian security interests," the minister said in a statement. "They also point to social media as an arena for at-risk actors and others who want to influence us through misinformation and fake news," she added. The recommendation applies to all professional devices of public servants linked to the digital systems of their administrations.

The minister had installed the app herself

The youngest member of the government, Emilie Enger Mehl, 29, was herself in the storm last fall. Under fire from the press and the opposition, she had admitted, after a long silence, to have installed TikTok on her function phone, stressing that she had deleted the application a month later. She had justified this use by the need to address a young audience, among whom the Chinese application is extremely popular.

If their use meets professional justifications, TikTok and Telegram can still be used by civil servants, but on devices that are not connected to the digital systems of the administrations, said the ministry.

The Netherlands too

In the Netherlands, the Dutch government on Tuesday also advised its officials against using TikTok or other apps run by countries with an "offensive cyber program" on their business devices. The argument is similar: according to a notice from the Dutch intelligence service (AIVD), there is "an increased risk of espionage" through the use of TikTok or other applications run by countries such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

The Dutch government has therefore "immediately" advised its officials against using such applications, and specified that it aims to arrive at a "structural solution", according to which it will be impossible for them to use these applications on their professional devices. "The central government must be able to do its work safely, also via its mobile devices," said Alexandra van Huffelen, Dutch State Secretary for Digitalisation.

Eventually, the government wants all work phones of civil servants to be configured so that only pre-authorized software, applications, software or features can be installed and used.



TikTok already banned from several institutions

The Netherlands will follow Canada, the U.K. and U.S. federal agencies, which have already banned TikTok from government devices due to data security concerns. The European Commission has also ordered the video-sharing app to be banned from its employees' devices.

TikTok acknowledged in November that employees of its parent company ByteDance in China had accessed the account information of Americans and Europeans. She admitted that employees had used the data to track down journalists. Current U.S. President Joe Biden has threatened to ban the app completely from the country if it doesn't separate from ByteDance.

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