NOS News•
Government officials will soon no longer be allowed to have TikTok on their work phones. State Secretary Van Huffelen writes this in a letter to the House of Representatives. Its use is immediately discouraged.
In the short term, phones that civil servants receive from the government will be set in such a way that only pre-approved apps may be installed, “spy sensitive apps” will then not be allowed. When asked, a spokesperson confirms that this relates to TikTok, an app from the Chinese company Bytedance.
There are 140,000 civil servants. It is unclear how many civil servants have a telephone from the government.
Advice from AIVD
In doing so, the cabinet is following the advice of the AIVD intelligence service. That advice states that there is an increased risk of espionage for all apps “managed by countries with an offensive cyber program directed against the Netherlands and Dutch interests”.
Although the country is not mentioned by name, China is one of the countries that is counted among them. Other countries mentioned by the AIVD are Russia, Iran and North Korea. This rule therefore does not apply to other well-known social media such as Instagram and Facebook, which are American.
In the press statement, State Secretary Van Huffelen says that “recent parliamentary questions and international developments have led us to make a careful assessment that goes further than advising against one application”. She speaks of a structural solution for civil servants of the national government. There was already a majority in the House of Representatives for a ban.
Other countries
The Netherlands follows other European countries that have announced measures against TikTok. Earlier this month, the United Kingdom and Belgium announced a ban. European institutions, including the European Commission, already decided on this last month.
In the US, there is a ban on TikTok for federal government officials, but the measure has also been implemented at other levels of government.
