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European Commission tells its staff to remove TikTok from their phones by March 15
Another government entity is making a move to keep the popular TikTok app off its devices. This time, it's the European Commission, the executive of the European Union. The BBC reports that the EC has ordered its 32,000 employees to remove TikTok from their company phones and devices, along with their personal phones if they have official EC apps installed like their email app and Skype for Business.
In a statement, the EC said the decision was made to ban TikTok from its devices to "protect data and increase cybersecurity". No further explanations were made. Employees have until March 15 to ditch TikTok, or risk not being able to use the EC's official apps.
TikTok parent company ByteDance is not happy with the EC's move to ban the app, with a spokesperson stating, "We are disappointed with this decision, which we believe to be misguided and based on fundamental misconceptions."
Many governments, including the US, have accused the China-based ByteDance of using TikTok of collecting data from its users that could be shared with the Chinese government. ByteDance has consistantly denied these accusations. However, that has not stopped many US government agencies from banning TikTok from official devices like the EC is now doing.
In late December 2022, the US Congress passed a bill that bans all federal government employees from accessing TikTok on their official devices. That ban is supposed to go into effect on February 27. Some members of Congress want to pass a law that would ban TikTok completely in the US, but those efforts are unlikely to succeed.
