The announcement brings TikTok into line with the EU, which enacted a ban of TikTok on Authorities units final month, whereas nearly all of US states have now additionally banned the app from Authorities-owned telephones.

As reported by The Guardian:

“The UK determination follows a assessment of TikTok by authorities cybersecurity specialists that started in November, and can cowl ministers’ and civil servants’ work telephones, however not their private telephones. [Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Dowden says] it is a ‘proportionate transfer based mostly on a selected danger with authorities units’.”

Amid rising world tensions, issues across the Chinese language-owned app, and the potential for it for use as a spying system, have grow to be extra urgent, with many cybersecurity specialists warning that TikTok could possibly be used to trace citizen actions, and monitor consumer exercise.

And people stories do have precedent.

Late final 12 months, it was revealed that representatives from TikTok’s mum or dad firm ByteDance had used TikTok knowledge to monitor the actions of US journalists, in a bid to uncover which ByteDance staff could also be leaking data to the press.

That is the important thing concern across the misuse of TikTok knowledge, and on this context, the increasing bans of the app on government-owned units is sensible, as that could possibly be used as a vector to trace individuals’s actions, and monitor who they’re assembly with.

For presidency staff, who could also be in possession of delicate data, there’s a degree of danger right here, so it does make sense for officers to be elevating the alarm, and taking motion on this circumstance.

The query then is whether or not the TikTok bans must be expanded to all customers, as is at the moment into account within the US. The newest on that entrance is that the White Home is reportedly pressuring TikTok to be offered off from its Chinese language house owners if it needs to maintain working within the area.

That’s virtually precisely what former President Donald Trump proposed again in 2020, which practically noticed TikTok offered to a consortium led by Oracle, earlier than the incoming Biden Administration deserted these plans.

Now, it appears TikTok is being compelled to re-examine comparable choices – although it’s value noting that any sale of TikTok, as a Chinese language asset, would additionally require approval from the Chinese language Authorities, which has repeatedly expressed its disapproval of the varied bans of the app.

TikTok, too, continues to voice its opposition to those actions. On the UK ban, a TikTok spokesperson mentioned:

“We consider these bans have been based mostly on elementary misconceptions and pushed by wider geopolitics, through which TikTok, and our hundreds of thousands of customers within the UK, play no half. We stay dedicated to working with the federal government to handle any issues.”

Which, in fact, is the response you would possibly count on, however it’s fascinating to see TikTok making reference to geopolitical tensions, and invoking nationalistic fears, as a way to oppose the increasing bans.

Look, proper now, there doesn’t appear to be a transparent case for a full TikTok ban, as there wasn’t when the US initially proposed a ban underneath Trump in 2020. However that doesn’t imply that it received’t occur – and actually, it appears like we’re very, very near the sting on this, amid accusations of spying and worldwide interference on a number of fronts.   

The proposal to drive TikTok right into a sell-off, if the US Authorities does press this, might doubtlessly safe billions in income for the corporate, and that looks like an excessive amount of to go away behind for TikTok, if it comes right down to it.

However once more, the Chinese language Authorities might look to make an announcement as an alternative, and resist western bullying.

In essence, it seemingly will come right down to geopolitical tensions, a method or one other, and people tensions do appear to be carrying skinny proper now.