Parliament and two other EU institutions join TikTok ban

The European Parliament (EP), the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the Economic and Social Council (CES) have decided to ban the social network TikTok on professional mobile phones, and also recommended its exclusion on personal devices, it was announced this Wednesday.

The suspension of this application by these authorities follows a similar decision taken by the European Commission (EC) and the Council of the European Union (EU), Efe reported, citing sources in the European community.

In EP, the measure will apply from March 20, while CdR and CES urged their employees to remove TikTok “as soon as possible and in no case later than March 15.”

According to the same sources, the EP also called for the removal of the social network “as soon as possible” and “strongly” recommended that MPs and officials remove TikTok from their personal devices.

This decision was made by Parliament, the CoR and the ESC due to “cybersecurity considerations”, in particular regarding data protection and data collection by third parties.

In addition, from March 20, access to TikTok through the corporate PE network will also be blocked, a measure that includes corporate desktops and laptops.

The European Parliament recalled that TikTok is not part of the standard configuration of the institution’s corporate devices and noted that it is constantly reviewing its cybersecurity measures in close cooperation with other EU institutions.

Sources in the European community added that EP is “constantly” monitoring cybersecurity threats and activities that could be used to cyber-attack its corporate environment.

“We have decided that the TikTok app should not be used or installed on any device used to access committee technology services. It needs to be removed from the provided devices and we strongly recommend that it be removed from your personal devices” can be read in the “email” sent on this Wednesday to CdR and CES employees that EFE had access to.

Last week, the European Commission (EC) and the Council of the European Union (EU) announced that they would ban TikTok from their official mobile devices as they seek to better protect security in the face of growing cyberattacks.

Upon learning of the decision by the European Community’s executive branch, TikTok requested a meeting with those in charge to “clarify the situation” about its own security measures.

The Chinese social media platform said in a statement that it was “surprised” by the measure and that it had not received prior contact.

Brussels has been paying attention to TikTok and other big tech companies for some time now, and in this context, in January, it met with Chinese company CEO Show Zi Chu, who was threatened with a ban on its use in the European Union if the social network does not prevent minors from accessing potentially lethal videos.” does not prevent the transfer of user data to third countries.

European institutions are also following in the footsteps of the US, where Congress banned lawmakers and officials from installing the app on their official mobile phones. Several states and academic institutions have taken similar steps.

Canada, for its part, announced on Tuesday that it would ban federal employees from using the app on official mobile phones because it poses an “unacceptable” risk to their privacy and security.