Olivier Véran assures that “no minister’s professional telephone is equipped” with the application

While several governments and institutions have banned their employees from using TikTok, due to data security concerns, Olivier Véran assured that“no minister’s business phone[étai]t equipped with TikTok”. “Whether it’s the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister or members of the government, we have professional telephones which, in any case, do not tolerate the installation of any social network type application”he explained on Wednesday March 1 at the end of the Council of Ministers.

>> TikTok: three questions about the banning of the Chinese application in Western institutions and states

“In the context of so-called sovereign ministries, in particular Defense or the Interior, it has already been ensured that on the professional telephones of agents at the central level cannot be installed social network applications such as TikTok or other”he continued.

A “reflection” in progress

The government spokesperson specifies that a “reflection is underway in other ministries and possibly concerning central or territorial administrations. We are also awaiting reports from the Cnil [Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés] to make a more general decision” on the use of the platform.

“We do not want these applications to have data that is processed outside the European Union because it is one of the guarantees of European sovereignty.”

Olivier Veran

in the Council of Ministers

The European Commission and the European Parliament have announced the banning of the Chinese social network on the professional devices of their employees. A decision also taken by the Canadian and American governments. The moves come as TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is Chinese, has come under increasing scrutiny from Westerners over fears Beijing could access user data around the world.