Latvia Follows The US, Canada, and The EU And Bans TikTok on Government Devices

Governments have barred their officials from using TikTok on their mobile phones claiming cybersecurity and data protection concerns.

The Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed on Thursday that it has prevented its officials from installing the Chinese-owned TikTok application on their work electronic devices, as the European Commission, the United States, and Canada have already done, for “safety reasons”.

“For security reasons, I have deleted my TikTok account. The Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs prohibits the use of this application on smart devices that have the Ministry’s emails installed,” said the owner of this portfolio, Edgars Rinkevics, on his Twitter account.

Although Foreign Affairs have cautioned that the “success” of this application consists in its “high precision” to analyze and guess “what everyone wants to see” which may be used to collect data on the diplomatic service, the portfolio of Defense finds no reason to apply the same measure.

Also read: This is the list of countries that have already banned TikTok

For their part, some other ministries, such as Welfare, are examining the move, but they have specified that not only would it be illegal to install Tik Tok on official devices and phones, but also all those programs that had nothing to do with the work, writes the LSM news portal.

In recent days, the United States, Canada, and the European Union all barred their officials from using TikTok on their mobile phones, claiming cybersecurity and data protection concerns. For its part, TikTok rejects this decision and considers it “wrong” and based “on misconceptions.”