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NATO bans the use of TikTok on their devices

NATO bans the use of TikTok on their devices

NATO has officially banned staff from downloading the social media app TikTok on their NATO-provided devices, citing security concerns, according to two officials.

NATO officials sent an email to staff Friday morning announcing the ban, they said. The memo made the ban official, but TikTok wasn't actually usable on NATO-issued devices before, due to the technology's internal limitations.

"Cyber ​​security is a top priority for NATO. NATO has strong requirements for defining applications for official business use. "TikTok is not accessible on NATO devices ," a senior NATO official told CNN.

NATO is the latest government body to ban the app over concerns that the Chinese government may have access to TikTok's user data through its Chinese parent company, Bytedance. The US, UK, Norway, the European Parliament and other countries have already banned the app from government-issued devices.

TikTok's chief executive, Shou Chew, stressed to US lawmakers earlier this month that the company is completely independent from Beijing and said he "has not seen any evidence that the Chinese government has access to that data: "We have never requested, we have not given it".

He added that TikTok is moving its data to the US, to be stored on American soil by the American company Oracle.

"So the risk would be similar to any government going to a US company, asking for data," he said.

Source: BBC

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