Sweden: The army in turn bans TikTok on its devices

The Swedish military announced on Monday that it is banning the military from using the Chinese app TikTok on service devices for security reasons. It thus agrees with a series of similar decisions in Western countries. “The use of mobile phones and tablets can in itself pose a security risk, therefore from now on we do not want TikTok on our service equipment,” said a spokeswoman for the armed forces, Guna Graufeld. .

In its decision, the Swedish army indicates that it was based on “information that appeared in public sources on how the application captures user data, and on the actions of the owner company ByteDance”. The White House, the European Commission, the Canadian, British and French governments recently banned their officials from using TikTok on their work phones. The Norwegian Parliament did the same last week.

TikTok disputes

At the center of fears is a 2017 Chinese law that requires local companies to hand over personal data that would be relevant to national security upon request from the authorities. China assured Friday that it would “never” ask its companies to hand over data collected abroad, when the Chinese application TikTok is threatened with a total ban in the United States in the name of national security.

The app for sharing short videos, very popular among young people, is accused by its critics of giving Chinese authorities access to user data around the world, which TikTok disputes. The social network is owned by Chinese group ByteDance, which has a similar but separate app for China.

(AFP)Show comments