TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, should be removed by all European Commission employees by March 15 at the latestotherwise they risk being excluded from business applications such as business email and Skype for Business. According to European Commission spokesperson Sonia Gospodinova, this decision was taken by the European Commission’s Corporate Governance Council for security reasons.

This measure aims to protect the Commission from cybersecurity threats and actions that could be used for cyberattacks against the Commission’s institutional environment.
– said Gospodinova.

TikTok reaction

A representative from TikTok said he was disappointed with the company’s decision, which they believe was based on “fundamental mistakes”. The company has asked the European Commission to provide an explanation of how it protects the data of the 125 million people who access TikTok each month across the EU.

The European Commission, headquartered in Brussels and the executive body of the European Union, employs approximately 32,000 permanent and contract employees. The TikTok ban follows a similar move by the US government last year, which banned government employees from using the app on work devices.

TikTok CEO Shaw Zi Chu recently held a meeting with senior EU officials to restore trust in the company. During the meeting, Chu explained that the company has a longer path to addressing data protection issues.

Scandal over TikTok employees’ access to user data

In November, TikTok’s management acknowledged that employees at the company’s headquarters in China may have accessed the personal data of users in the EU and other countries around the world, after Forbes released a statement that the app was being used to spy on American journalists. Last August, the UK parliament also deleted its TikTok account over concerns that Beijing might be using the app for spying.