JAM STA ROSA / AFP
This Friday, March 24, the government banned the installation and use of “leisure” applications such as TikTok or Netflix on the work phones of 2.5 million state officials (photo illustration April 2021).
SOCIAL NETWORKS – Around France. This Friday, March 24, the government banned the installation and use of “leisure” applications such as TikTok or Netflix on the work phones of 2.5 million civil servants.
These applications pose “risks in terms of cyber security and privacy of civil servants and administration,” assessed the entourage of the Minister for Public Service, who is following in the footsteps of several Western institutions and governments that have already banned or restricted its use from TikTok on work devices.
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No list
Applications now banned include “the triptych of gaming applications like Candy Crush, streaming like Netflix and leisure like TikTok,” explains Stanislas Guerini’s entourage, before adding that Twitter is also blacklisted. But the government has not yet created a unified list of banned applications, the measure is taken by default.
The ban, which the government says has been communicated to the various ministries through a “binding” directive, comes into effect immediately and will not affect state officials’ personal phones. Civil servants who wish to use one of the blocked applications for institutional communication purposes must apply for an exemption from the digital department of their ministry.
There is currently no uniform system of sanctions for violations of the ban. Any sanctions must be decided “at the senior level” of each ministry, according to Stanislas Guerini’s services.
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Similar measures in many countries
The White House, the European Commission, the Canadian and British governments, and other organizations, among others, have recently banned their officials from using TikTok on their work phones. At the heart of the concerns is a Chinese law from 2017 that obliges local companies to provide personal data that would be relevant to national security if the authorities request it.
The Chinese government “has never and will never ask any company or individual to collect or hand over data from overseas in a way that violates local laws,” Chinese diplomacy spokesman Mao Ning said on Friday.
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