The European Commission requires its employees to remove the "TikTok" application from their mobile phone devices.
This was announced today by Thierry Breton, the commissioner responsible for the local market in the European Union.
The reason given for the decision is security considerations, however the Commission firmly refused to answer whether a specific recent event was behind the unusual announcement.
"This is an internal decision of the Commission that stems from considerations of information security," said the Commission's spokesman Eric Mamer at the daily press briefing at the headquarters in Brussels.
Commission headquarters in Brussels, photo: Reuters
This is the first instruction of its kind by one of the bodies of the European Union.
The European Commission previously recommended to prefer the use of certain applications, but the blanket ban on the use of the Chinese video sharing application on the Commission's devices is the first of its kind.
"The Commission is a frequent target of cyber attacks, so we take the issue of digital information security very seriously," said an article.
The Commission refused to indicate whether the decision is expected to lead to the formulation of recommendations for safe use for the general public, or whether in the future the Commission's employees will be required to reduce or stop the use of other applications.
However, the Commission's employees were asked to remove the Chinese application from their private phones as well, in case they also have applications related to their work at the Union institutions installed on them at the same time.
The decision is expected to enter into force on March 15.
The commission's decision was made against the backdrop of growing tensions in the cyber field between Western countries and China.
Federal authorities and some states in the United States have made similar decisions in the past, mainly due to the concern that the popular application may pose a significant risk to information security.
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