The Netherlands is shifting to cease central authorities workers having apps together with fashionable video sharing service TikTok put in on their work telephones, amid issues over knowledge safety.
Nations together with the US and Britain, in addition to the European Union ‘s govt department, have banned the usage of TikTok on authorities workers telephones over fears that its Chinese language proprietor, ByteDance, may share person knowledge with the authoritarian authorities in Beijing.
“For civil servants employed by the nationwide authorities, it’s instantly discouraged to have apps from international locations with an offensive cyber program in opposition to the Netherlands and/or Dutch pursuits put in and used on their cell work units,” the federal government mentioned in a press release Tuesday that didn’t determine TikTok by identify. The brand new coverage got here after lawmakers requested whether or not it was potential to ban central authorities workers from utilizing the app on work units.
The recommendation follows an evaluation by nationwide intelligence company AIVD that warned that apps from such international locations—which embody China, Russia, North Korea and Iran—”carry a heightened threat of espionage.”
A regulation China applied in 2017 requires firms to provide the federal government any private knowledge related to the nation’s nationwide safety. There is no proof that TikTok has turned over such knowledge, however fears abound because of the huge quantity of person knowledge it collects.
Alexandra van Huffelen, the Dutch minister for digitalization, mentioned in a press release that the brand new coverage “goes past discouraging one software. We go for a structural answer that central authorities officers can belief of their work in a digital world.”
The federal government mentioned it’s planning to maneuver shortly to arrange all cell units given to central authorities workers “in such a means that solely pre-permitted apps, software program and/or functionalities will be put in and used.”
The choice comes two weeks after the Dutch authorities angered Beijing by saying that it’s planning on imposing extra restrictions on the export of machines that make superior processor chips, becoming a member of a U.S. push that goals at limiting China’s entry to supplies used to make such chips.
