EU Officials Ban TikTok From Employees' Phones (bbc.com) 18
Staff working at the European Commission have been ordered to remove the TikTok app from their phones and corporate devices. The BBC reports: The commission said it was implementing the measure to "protect data and increase cybersecurity." EU spokeswoman Sonya Gospodinova said the corporate management board of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, had made the decision for security reasons. "The measure aims to protect the Commission against cybersecurity threats and actions which may be exploited for cyberattacks against the corporate environment of the commission," she said. The ban also means that European Commission staff cannot use TikTok on personal devices that have official apps installed.
The commission says it has around 32,000 permanent and contract employees. They must remove the app as soon as possible and no later than March 15. For those who do not comply by the set deadline, the corporate apps -- such as the commission email and Skype for Business -- will no longer be available. [...] TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has faced allegations that it harvests users' data and hands it to the Chinese government.
The commission says it has around 32,000 permanent and contract employees. They must remove the app as soon as possible and no later than March 15. For those who do not comply by the set deadline, the corporate apps -- such as the commission email and Skype for Business -- will no longer be available. [...] TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has faced allegations that it harvests users' data and hands it to the Chinese government.
Re: (Score:3)
They were hired to work, not sit around watching a 13-year-old Ke$ha video [youtube.com].
Not sure if you got modded down because /. mods don't get pop culture jokes or you made someone feel old, but you made me laugh. For some reason I just pictured some old German dude with a heavy accent singing "ain't got a care in the world, but got plenty of bier!"
Hard to believe.. (Score:2)
It is hard to believe the EU got a digital issue so absolutely 100% right this time, given their track record.
I am shocked, in the most positive way.
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I presume they've decided the Chinese will just lie about it so there's no point in asking.
Re: Hard to believe.. (Score:2)
The US considers European data held in Europe by a US company fair game for court orders. There are plenty of cases where EU data can't be hosted by US companies, or where it's not entirely clear if doing so is a violation of EU laws.
China is far from innocent, but the US motivation for pushing tiktok scare stories is to support US businesses that they can tax and extract data from.
Re:Hard to believe.. (Score:4, Informative)
> It is hard to believe the EU got a digital issue so absolutely 100% right this time, given their track record.
Europe has always been highly progressive.
First to establish anti-smoking campaign.
Pro-workers rights.
Pro-animals rights.
Open drug experimentation.
Open borders (some would say wide open).
Banning offensive material.
And that's just the Nazi party at their height. There's plenty of other progressive political groups in Europe.
Re: Hard to believe.. (Score:2)
That's a bad argument. Pick any oppressive government and they are doing some things right.
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United States under Trump.
"liTErAlLy wOrse THAN hiTleR"
"naME OnE tHING trUMP DId riGHT"
"truMp deStROYed amERiCA"
Re: (Score:2)
Pro worker's rights? It's interesting that you believe the Nazi's propaganda about themselves. Do you also believe the Democratic people's Republic of Korea is a democracy?
In the real world the Nazis sent socialists to concentration camps, destroyed unions and killed their leaders, created a fake state run "union" to control the workforce and ensure employers got the workers they wanted, banned the right to strike or bargain collectively, and so on.
The rest of your claims are equally stupid intentional misr
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While banning this one app is a good thing, it's hard to call them "absolutely 100% right" on the issue of device security, considering all the staff are still conducting state business on consumer-grade smartphones. All of it's made in China and loaded with the standard suite of Big Tech spyware from the US. Doubtlessly riddled with security holes on top of that.
TikTok is 1% of the problem. The rest remains unaddressed.
Security? (Score:3)
Re:Security? (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree that it isn't a security measure too, banning any kind social media apps from government equipment means one less intrusion-vector to worry about.
Re: (Score:2)
The real question is (Score:3)
What kind of idiot decided Social Media Spyware - from *any* country - was acceptable to have on employee phones in the first place?
I'm guessing the answer was "someone who wanted more likes on their Facebook posts, and had enough authority, ignorance, and stupidity to overrule the technical staff", unless there isn't a single competent sysadmin in that entire continent-spanning bureaucracy.
Given the number of politicians involved, finding several hundred that meet those criteria would be as hard as doing so among the management of any large company. I mean, are there any admins here who *haven't* been quietly instructed to exclude the C-suite from the porn filters? The only difference here is that it was ego driving this staggeringly inept original decision, because that was the part they wanted to stroke instead.
After this, they'll *still* have Facebook and Twitter installed on those "work" phones, who will happily sell the same data TikTok is supposedly sending to China to anyone, including China.
How many of those phones run Android, or Chrome, and send a giant superset of that same data to Google, who will also happily sell it to anyone?
How many run some random piece of garbage downloaded from App Stores that "needs" camera, mic, location, and Contacts access to show you a funny picture each morning?
How many "corporate devices" are PCs running modern desktop Windows? With all their mail on an Exchange server?
There's the world of Adults, where Work Devices are work devices; and the world of Children, where a toy is a toy. The real issue here is that politicians are even worse about understanding the difference than Joe Average; and even less likely to care as long as they can get that sweet sweet sense of validation from total strangers. That it took something as obvious as TikTok to get any hint of awareness into the situation is as pathetic as it is irrelevant.
What was it doing there to begin with? (Score:2)