The decision was taken by the Institutional Board of Directors of the Commission and, in addition to the professional devices of the staff of the community executive, it also covers mobile devices at the institution.

Employees must uninstall the application from their professional devices no later than March 15, a spokesman said.

“This measure aims to protect the Commission from cybersecurity threats and actions that could be exploited for the purposes of cyber attacks against the Commission's business environment. The evolution of the security of other social media platforms will also be subject to permanent review”, announced Brussels.

According to the Commission, which rejects having given in to pressure from the United States to ban the Chinese social networking platform, “this measure is in line with the Commission's strict internal policies on cybersecurity with regard to the use of mobile devices to carry out communications related to work” and “complements the advice that the Commission has been giving its staff for a long time, so that they apply best practices when using social media platforms and keep an eye on cyberspace in their daily work”.


“Disappointed”


TikTok expressed its disappointment at Brussels' decision to suspend the use of the application on its staff's professional devices, which it considered "wrong and based on fundamental misconceptions".

“We are disappointed with this decision, which we consider wrong and based on fundamental misconceptions” and “we contacted the European Commission to clarify the situation and explain how we protect the data of the 125 million people across the European Union who use TikTok every month”, said a spokesman.

“We continually improve our approach to data security, including establishing three data centers in Europe to store user data locally; further reducing employee access to data; and minimizing data flows outside Europe”, concluded the same source.