Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has asked the intelligence services to carry out a risk analysis of the Chinese social network TikTok, but also of other similar applications, he told the plenary session of the Chamber. The subject will be discussed next week in the Strategic Intelligence and Security Committee (SISC), he added.
TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has come under fire after the tech company admitted that some employees had access to US and European users’ data. In the last few weeks, an increasing amount of governments and parliaments –including the EU institutions – have started banning TikTok on their employees’ work phones and other business devices. European authorities are increasingly concerned about data theft and espionage at the hands of the Chinese Government.
This week, the Belgian Army's new head of cybersecurity General Michel Van Strythem warned Belgian officials to not use the app on work phones.
When asked about the issue, De Croo said that the Centre for Cybersecurity in Belgium has always called for caution with such applications, also adding that TikTok is also a geopolitical issue. “China has different rules for companies,” he said.
When asked about her use of the social network, Defence Minister Ludivine Dedonder assured that the app was not installed on her work or private phone, but on a special phone.
“This makes it possible, with all the usual precautions, to inform and develop a modern communication that reaches a large category of Belgian citizens. We are talking about 4.2 million Belgian users of the application, some of whom only use it as a means of communication,” she defended herself.
This response did not convince MPs Georges Dallemagne (Les Engagés) and Denis Ducarme (MR).
