New York government employees must immediately remove TikTok from their work phones. Will there also be a ban on TikTok in the Netherlands?
TikTok banned in New York
Employees of the US government in New York are no longer allowed to use TikTok, because there will be an immediate ban on the app. Government employees are given 30 days to remove TikTok from their work phones. After this period, New York government employees will be prohibited from viewing messages on TikTok, both through the app and the website.
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New York is not the first US state with such a ban, in April this year already 34 (out of 50) states had a similar ban on TikTok. The US government sees TikTok as a threat to national security, mainly through the Chinese parent company ByteDance. There are fears of Chinese espionage via the app. What about the Netherlands?
The Netherlands already bans TikTok
There is already a similar ban on TikTok in the Netherlands. In March, the cabinet already decided that Dutch civil servants are no longer allowed to install the app on their work phones. The use of TikTok was also immediately discouraged. New government work phones are set up in such a way that TikTok can no longer be installed or visited by civil servants via the website.
This does not only apply to TikTok, as there is a ban on all apps that, according to the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), are sensitive to espionage. For example, the Dutch government tries to protect the digital safety of employees. Civil servants are allowed to use TikTok on a private phone, but there is currently no ban on this in the Netherlands.
Ministers are allowed to use TikTok
It is therefore forbidden for civil servants to install TikTok on their work phone, but there are no similar rules yet for parliamentarians in the Senate and House of Representatives. That is striking, because it is precisely the cabinet that has agreed to the ban on TikTok for civil servants in the Netherlands. Members of parliament can therefore still use and install the app on their work phone, although this is not recommended.
Also read: TikTok and China: should you actually delete the app?
The members of the Senate and House of Representatives are not civil servants, so they do not fall under the new TikTok ban. There is therefore no general TikTok ban for the Dutch government yet. Various parties such as D66 have already argued for this, but the ban has not (yet) been implemented. However, a number of large parties, including the VVD, deleted their TikTok account.
Enough alternatives to TikTok
For the time being, MPs can therefore continue to use TikTok, just like the rest of the Netherlands. If there is a ban on TikTok in the Netherlands, this will probably have to be arranged through the European Union. So it doesn’t look like there will be a blanket ban on the app, at least not in the short term.
If it does come to that, there are already enough alternatives to TikTok. For example, Instagram has introduced Reels and you can watch Shorts on YouTube. Want to know what features TikTok can access on your iPhone? Then go to your phone’s settings, scroll down and choose TikTok. There you can customize which features of your iPhone TikTok can access.
If you don’t make videos with the app yourself, it is in any case recommended to turn off the switch behind the microphone and camera. This way the app has no unnecessary access to those functions of your iPhone!
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