The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has officially banned employees from downloading or using the Chinese-owned video-making app TikTok onto their “NATOprovided” devices, mentioning security concerns, according to two NATO officials familiar with the matter.
NATO officials sent a notice to employees on Friday morning declaring the ban on TikTok, the officials said. The notice made the ban official, but TikTok was not usable on NATO-issued devices before, anyway, the officials said, because of internal tech restrictions.
Cyber security is a top priority for NATO. NATO has robust requirements for determining applications for official business use. TikTok is not accessible on NATO devices, a senior NATO official told CNN.
NATO is the latest governmental body to ban the Chinese-owned app over worries that the Chinese government could have access to TikTok users’ data through its Chinese parent company, Bytedance. The US, UK, Norway, European Parliament, and other countries have already banned the app from its official government-issued devices.
TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew stressed to US lawmakers earlier this month that the firm is completely independent of China, and said that he has seen or witnessed no evidence or anything related that the Chinese government has access to that user’s data; they have never asked us, we have not provided it.
He added that TikTok is moving its data into the US, to be stored in the United States by the American company Oracle. So the risk would be similar to any government going to an American company, asking for data, he said. Still, western governments remain suspicious.
TikTok should be ended one way or another, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress earlier this month in a separate hearing, on the same day Chew was testifying. Clearly, we, the administration and others are seized with the challenge that it poses and are taking action to address it.
