TikTok is making headlines again, but, as always, not for good reason.
Back in February, the White House announced that it would give all federal agencies only 30 days to wipe TikTok from all government devices, citing security concerns.
The guidance has now been broadened to include contractors’ smartphones and even contractors’ personally owned devices.
An interim rule issued by the Department of Defense (DoD), General Services Administration (GSA), and NASA states that “TikTok (and other apps developed by TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance), regardless of whether the device is owned is prohibited from existing. by governments, contractors, or contractor employees. ”
One safety net for TikTok addicts is that government contractors are still allowed to install TikTok on personal smartphones if they are not “used to perform a contract.”
In other words, you do all your contract work on your boss’s smartphone and don’t dare install TikTok.
The rule tightening is the latest round in a growing battle between TikTok and many of the West over alleged ties to the social platform and the Chinese government.
These concerns have already resulted in TikTok being banned in various places around the world, including the European Parliament, the UK government, the Canadian government and India.
TikTok is most popular with teens and 20-somethings, with over 150 million users in the US. Banning TikTok may or may not be a good step away from the smartphones they use for work, may or may not be good for security, but arguably good for productivity. right.
This week, TikTok owner ByteDance was accused of allowing members of the Communist Party of China to access data on civil rights activists and protesters in Hong Kong.
ByteDance and TikTok have repeatedly denied that Chinese authorities control their software or data.
