As France joined European Governments rushing to ban their employees from using the Chinese-owned video-sharing TikTok app on their official phones, China’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom said the moves were “over-stretching the idea of national security”.
Zheng Zeguang said the Chinese Government respected privacy in its laws and it was wrong not to allow people to use the social media app.
“To ban TikTok, to ban UK Government officials to use or to describe TikTok as something that is controlled by the Chinese Government, is obviously over-stretching the idea of national security and politicising a technical company,” Mr Zheng said.
His comments came as a French Minister announced a TikTok ban on all Government work phones.
Minister for the Civil Service, Stanislas Guerini said the decision was made “in order to guarantee the cyber-security of our administrations and Civil Servants”.
“Recreational applications do not have sufficient levels of cyber-security and data protection in order to be deployed on the administration’s equipment,” Mr Guerini said.
“The ban is effective immediately and Government services will monitor compliance.”
The Norwegian Parliament, the Local Governments of both Oslo and Bergen, and Norway’s Central Bank have joined the State Government in ordering the app removed from their employees’ official phones.
This follows a new evaluation from Norway’s National Security Authority that stated the main concern was over how TikTok requests and is believed to store user information that could be shared with Chinese authorities.
Other Western Governments and institutions have banned TikTok in recent weeks, including the European Union, UK Parliament, the Dutch and Belgian Governments and the New Zealand Parliament.
Paris, 29 March 2023
