The Belgian federal government has banned the social media platform TikTok on computers and mobile devices used by civil servants. The government’s decision was announced after the meeting of the National Security Council.
TikTok application, owned by China-based company ByteDance, has been banned by the Belgian federal government to civil servants. Deputy Prime Minister Georges Gilkinet announced on his social media account that the ban decision, which was announced after the meeting of the National Security Council, was taken at the federal level. Using the phrase “we made a logical and necessary decision”, Gilkinet said that he will now only be on Facebook and Twitter.
It was noted that in addition to the federal government, the Flemish government will likewise impose a ban on TikTok for public employees. The Walloon government is expected to take the same decision soon.
PRIVACY VIOLATION WARNING
The Belgian Cyber Security Center also warned that TikTok collects significant amounts of data from users, sometimes users are not aware of it, and this poses a risk in terms of violation of privacy.The center’s warning also stated that TikTok can manipulate information flow and content through algorithms, and Chinese laws force TikTok to cooperate with Chinese intelligence.
Some Western countries, especially the USA, and the European Union (EU) institutions decided to ban the use of TikTok on devices used by official employees for work in the past weeks.
