France joins the countries that prohibit the use of TikTok social network on the cell phones of government officials. The decision could also be extended to Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram.

In an email sent to employees earlier this week, they were recommended to remove the application from their professional mobile phones.

These applications present “risks in terms of cybersecurity and data protection of civil servants and the administration”, concluded the delegation of the Minister of the Public Service, Stanislas Guerini, after an analysis carried out by the National Security Agency. Information Systems (ANSSI) and by the Interministerial Digital Department (Dinum).

Among the apps now banned are “the triptych of gaming apps like Candy Crush, ‘streaming’ [norte-americano] like Netflix and entertainment like TikTok”, explained the entourage of Stanislas Guerini.

Also Twitter, whose content moderation policy has been debated since its takeover by Elon Musk, is on the ‘blacklist’.

However, the government has not yet established a detailed list of prohibited applications applied to all ministries.

In principle, all applications that could be considered recreational will be prohibited, but exceptions may be granted due to the need for institutional communication, for example, according to the ministry.

The ban, notified to the various ministries by a “binding” instruction, according to the government, takes effect immediately and does not cover the personal devices of state agents.

A unified system of sanctions is not yet envisaged at present in the event of violation of the rules.

The move comes a day after the UK and Scottish parliaments announced a ban on Chinese-owned social network ByteDance’s TikTok short videos from devices on security grounds.

Already several countries have taken the same decisionamong them the WEO UNITED KINGDOM, Canada or Belgium. MEPs are also prohibited from accessing the application.

TikTok was created by a Chinese company, and for this reason, several executives fear that user data will end up in the hands of the Beijing government.

To date, Portugal has not taken a position on TikTok.