The Dutch government has advised civil servants not to use the Chinese app TikTok.
This was reported to Politico by representatives of the Dutch government.
Both the US and the European Union are concerned that TikTok user data is not confidential. Despite this, the Chinese application is quite popular in the Netherlands, where 3.5 million people use it. A spokesman for the Ministry of General Affairs clarified that the advice does not force officials to remove the app from their phones and only applies to government communications.
TikTok said it was open to engaging with the Dutch government to "debunk misconceptions and explain how we keep both our community and their data safe."
In November, the Dutch Ministry of General Affairs already recommended that the use of TikTok in government work be stopped until the appʼs data protection policy changes.
One of the fiercest critics of TikTok in Europe is French President Emmanuel Macron, who called the app "deceptively innocent" and the cause of "genuine addiction" among users, as well as a source of Russian disinformation.
- On December 15, 2022, the U.S. Upper House of Congress (Senate) voted to ban the use of the TikTok application on phones and other devices belonging to government officials, and on December 28, the House of Representatives banned the installation of the TikTok social network application on all official devices used for work in Chamber and all its employees.
- On December 23, 2022, the parent company of the TikTok platform ByteDance admitted that its employees illegally gained access to the data of two foreign journalists — a former BuzzFeed reporter and a Financial Times correspondent.