(CNN) NATO has banned the TikTok app from its staff’s devices, officially preventing employees from downloading the app on their own NATO-provided devices, citing security concerns, according to officials familiar with the alliance.
The officials said that NATO sent a note to employees on Friday morning announcing the ban.
Officials added that while the memo made the ban official, TikTok was not actually usable on previously NATO-issued devices in any form, due to internal technology limitations.
Thus, NATO is the latest government agency to ban the app due to concerns that the Chinese government could access TikTok user data through the parent Chinese company, Bytedance.
The short video app has previously been banned in the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, the European Parliament and other countries from government-issued devices.
TikTok CEO Xu Qiu stressed to US lawmakers earlier this month that the company is completely independent of Beijing, and said he had “not seen any evidence that the Chinese government had access to that data; they never asked us for it.” We didn’t provide it.”
He added that TikTok transfers its data to the United States, to be stored on American soil by the American company “Oracle”, explaining: “So the risk will be similar to any government that goes to an American company and requests data.”
However, Western governments remain skeptical.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress earlier this month in a separate session, the same day Chiu testified, that TikTok must be “terminated one way or another.”
CNN has reached out to TikTok for comment, with no immediate response.
The post Following in the footsteps of America and Britain.. “NATO” bans “Tik Tok” from its employees’ devices, and explains the reason appeared first on Gatto Presss.