After initially resisting calls to ban TikTok from authorities gadgets, the UK Authorities has now modified course, and introduced an instantaneous ban of the Chinese language-owned app on all Authorities worker telephones.
The announcement brings TikTok into line with the EU, which enacted a ban of TikTok on Authorities gadgets final month, whereas the vast majority of US states have now additionally banned the app from Authorities-owned telephones.
As reported by The Guardian:
“The UK choice follows a overview of TikTok by authorities cybersecurity consultants that started in November, and can cowl ministers’ and civil servants’ work telephones, however not their private telephones. [Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Dowden says] this can be a ‘proportionate transfer primarily based on a particular threat with authorities gadgets’.”
Amid rising international tensions, issues across the Chinese language-owned app, and the potential for it for use as a spying system, have change into extra urgent, with many cybersecurity consultants warning that TikTok may very well be used to trace citizen actions, and monitor consumer exercise.
And people stories do have precedent.
Late final yr, it was revealed that representatives from TikTok’s mother or father firm ByteDance had used TikTok knowledge to observe the actions of US journalists, in a bid to uncover which ByteDance workers could also be leaking information to the press.
That is the important thing concern across the misuse of TikTok knowledge, and on this context, the increasing bans of the app on government-owned gadgets is smart, as that may very well be used as a vector to trace folks’s actions, and monitor who they’re assembly with.
For presidency workers, who could also be in possession of delicate info, there’s a degree of threat right here, so it does make sense for officers to be elevating the alarm, and taking motion on this circumstance.
The query then is whether or not the TikTok bans needs to be expanded to all customers, as is presently into consideration within the US. The most recent on that entrance is that the White Home is reportedly pressuring TikTok to be bought off from its Chinese language house owners if it desires to maintain working within the area.
That’s virtually precisely what former President Donald Trump proposed again in 2020, which practically noticed TikTok bought to a consortium led by Oracle, earlier than the incoming Biden Administration deserted these plans.
Now, it appears TikTok is being pressured to re-examine comparable choices – although it’s value noting that any sale of TikTok, as a Chinese language asset, would additionally require approval from the Chinese language Authorities, which has repeatedly expressed its disapproval of the assorted bans of the app.
TikTok, too, continues to voice its opposition to those actions. On the UK ban, a TikTok spokesperson stated:
“We consider these bans have been primarily based on elementary misconceptions and pushed by wider geopolitics, wherein TikTok, and our thousands and thousands of customers within the UK, play no half. We stay dedicated to working with the federal government to deal with any issues.”
Which, in fact, is the response you would possibly anticipate, however it’s attention-grabbing to see TikTok making reference to geopolitical tensions, and invoking nationalistic fears, as a way to oppose the increasing bans.
Look, proper now, there doesn’t appear to be a transparent case for a full TikTok ban, as there wasn’t when the US initially proposed a ban below Trump in 2020. However that doesn’t imply that it gained’t occur – and actually, it appears like we’re very, very near the sting on this, amid accusations of spying and worldwide interference on a number of fronts.
The proposal to pressure TikTok right into a sell-off, if the US Authorities does press this, may probably safe billions in income for the corporate, and that looks as if an excessive amount of to depart behind for TikTok, if it comes right down to it.
However once more, the Chinese language Authorities could look to make a press release as an alternative, and resist western bullying.
In essence, it possible will come right down to geopolitical tensions, a method or one other, and people tensions do appear to be sporting skinny proper now.
