TikTok ban on government devices in EU, Canada and Belgium

by James · March 15, 2023

Will Farrell, the interim security officer for TikTok’s new US division, outlined to a room full of geeks and government types in Washington last week how TikTok plans to address concerns about the company’s handling of user data. Dubbed Project Texas, the plan involves separating TikTok’s software, data and mobile app for US users under the division, which will be overseen by the US government and Texas-based tech giant Oracle.

“It’s beyond what any tech company does today — it’s much closer to government contractors,” Farrell said at the conference. TikTok spent two years and $1.5 billion on Project Texas and is also rolling out a similar initiative tailored to European data security laws known as Project Clover.

But nothing comes of clover for TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance. The U.S. federal government, several states, and U.S. allies overseas are all concerned about the tech company’s ability to harvest sensitive user data. The day after Farrell’s speech, a dozen US senators introduced the RESTRICT Act, a bipartisan bill that would expand the Commerce Department’s authority to block transactions involving technology owned by foreign adversaries such as China and Russia. Although the legislation does not single out TikTok, its supporters have repeatedly referred to the platform in their statements introducing the bill. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan publicly supported the bill.

The tech company itself, whose short video app is the most downloaded app in the world, takes the outrage with disdain.

“Banning TikTok in the United States is a ban on exporting American culture and values to the billions of people who use our service around the world,” a TikTok spokesperson wrote in an email about the RESTRICTED Act. “For some time, our status has been publicly debated in a way that deviates from the facts and the significant progress that has been made in implementing the Texas Project. We will continue to do everything we can to create a comprehensive national security plan for the American people.”

But if TikTok’s finger is on the dam in Washington, the floodgates are opening elsewhere. In recent weeks, the European Union, Belgium and Canada have all banned the use of TikTok on government devices, mirroring similar bans introduced by the United States late last year. The Czech cyber watchdog has warned against using the app, and the UK is reportedly considering a similar ban.

The United States has long urged its allies to help trim China’s technology wings, particularly with its long-running global campaign against Chinese telecom company Huawei and most recently with the Biden administration’s push to limit semiconductor exports to China. Washington hasn’t been as vocal about TikTok so far, trying to ban the Chinese-owned platform in relative isolation until late last month. But now the situation on the Western Front is not so quiet.

“There are a couple of factors that are likely contributing to this shift that we’re seeing outside of the United States,” said Emily Kilcrease, senior fellow and director of the Energy, Economic and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. . Kilcrease previously served as the US trade and national security official. “One is a general hardening of political attitudes toward China, regardless of the issue. …It’s also a factor that TikTok itself has not done itself any favors when it comes to building trust that it’s actually a responsible company,” he said, referring to reports of ByteDance employees accessing TikTok data from China and for recent company recognition. that some employees (who were later fired) accessed the user data of two journalists who wrote about TikTok.

Many experts have pointed out that TikTok’s data collection practices are no different from those of other major tech platforms such as Facebook and Google. But fears about Chinese ownership of the platform, particularly laws that allow Beijing to compel any company to share user data with the government, and the possibility that China could use TikTok’s algorithm to influence American users, overrode any safeguards. TikTok insists it does not share data with the Chinese government, and would not do so if asked, so far it has fallen on deaf ears.

A spokesperson for the Canadian Treasury Department’s secretariat, which banned TikTok from government devices in the country, said. Foreign policy that the ban stems from concerns that the app’s users will be “vulnerable to surveillance” and “applicable legal regulations” regarding the data collected by TikTok. “This is consistent with actions taken by many other jurisdictions, including the United States,” the spokesman added.

A TikTok spokesperson wrote in an email that it was “disappointing to see other government agencies and institutions ban TikTok from employees’ devices without consideration or evidence,” adding that the bans were “wrong” and did not improve user safety.

Restrictions on government assets are one thing, but the political and legal calculations surrounding a full nationwide ban on TikTok may give governments pause. Experts who oppose the ban have also cited the impact it would have on free speech issues in the United States and beyond. Countering Chinese cyber access is one thing; learning about its methods is another.

“They have a very strong reluctance to see us as China, in that they ban things and censor voices,” said Aynne Kokas, director of the East Asia Center at the University of Virginia and author of the book. Data Trade: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty. The United States wouldn’t be the first country to ban TikTok — India banned it, along with dozens of other Chinese-owned apps, on its border with China after military clashes nearly three years ago. But that was even before TikTok had a billion users, including nearly a third of the US population. “The Chinese apps that were banned at the time were far less powerful than TikTok is now in the US,” Kokas said.

That may not matter if the RESTRICTION Act becomes law, with language giving the US Commerce Department broad powers to “identify, deter, disrupt, prevent, prohibit, and moderate” transactions with foreign companies for national security reasons. But if Washington nevertheless moves forward with a total ban, it may find few followers.

“I see the United States is preparing for a total ban because of China’s policy there,” said a Western diplomat in Beijing, highlighting a ban already in effect in 2020 by then-President Donald Trump that was later overturned by US courts. “I don’t think many other countries are quite in the same place as China, at least not yet.”

Even Europe, with its draconian data protection laws, hasn’t budged. “No further EU action is planned at this stage, but of course nothing is off the table if new information comes to light,” a senior European official said, adding that the bloc would continue to monitor TikTok’s compliance with its existing data protection regime . “The EU is not acting simply because the US could act, but there may be evidence [or] The EU will consider whether further measures are needed,” the official said.

While the United States and Europe are moving toward greater alignment on threats posed by Chinese technology, there are still significant differences in their approaches. Getting the support of 27 EU member states to ban TikTok may be more challenging than getting the RESTRICTION Act through Congress.

“We should probably agree on a total ban [on] each member state and some assess the risk differently,” said Marietje Schaake, director of international policy at Stanford University’s Center for Cyber Policy and a former member of the European Parliament.

“In an ideal world, common rules on data protection and democratic principles would apply across the Atlantic,” he added. “But we’re not there yet.”