NATO officials banned from using TikTok on cell phones

NATO banned the installation of TikTok on the mobile phones of the organization’s employees. The decision is related to cybersecurity issues, according to two workers familiar with the matter.

“NATO has robust requirements for determining applications for commercial use. TikTok is not accessible on NATO devices,” a worker told CNN International.

NATO has become the latest intergovernmental organization to take this step in the face of privacy concerns. According to the organization, these concerns are due to the fact that the Chinese government may have access to TikTok user data through Bytedance, the Chinese company that owns the platform.

Shou Chew, CEO of TikTok, stressed to US lawmakers earlier this month that the company is completely independent of Beijing and said he had seen “no evidence that the Chinese government has access to this data. “, he said, adding that TikTok is transferring the data to the US, to then be stored by Oracle, an American technology company, specializing in the development of hardware and software.

The social network TikTok has already been banned from the mobile phones of employees of several governments, including the US, UK, Norway and France. According to Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, TikTok should even “end one way or another”.