The ban on TikTok affects 32 000 permanent and contract employees of the EU Commission, as staff are instructed to remove the app from corporate devices and personal devices that have official software installed on them by 15 March 2023.
The news follows a warning issued in January 2023 by EU Commissioner, Thierry Breton, to the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, of an imminent ban should the app not adhere to the bloc’s Digital Services Act, which Agence France-Presse reports will be promulgated in September to regulate growing concerns over ‘data privacy, cyber security and misinformation’.
The readout of the call between the Commissioner and the CEO reveals Breton’s agitation over how quickly the app’s seemingly nebulous features can take a turn for the worst, going as far as exposing young users to ‘harmful and sometimes even life-threatening content’, indicating that the ban may be applied to EU-based users at large.
The EU follows a similar ban placed by the US on government-issued devices on 30 December 2022. The company had made an admission revealing that some of their China-based staff, where the company’s parent company Byte Dance has its headquarters, had access to EU users’ data.
TikTok has since made proposals to both the EU and the US to keep the data of their users on domestic servers – in Washington for US users and in Ireland for EU users.
Failure to delete the app by 15 March will result in employees not being able to access the Commission’s email and Skype for business.