Watching dance videos and memes can become a thing of the past when more and more municipalities and regions ban the Tiktok app on work mobile phones. But the damage may already be done. – Information about all the people who use Tiktok has been spread outside the country’s borders, just like it is done in Facebook, Instagram or any other social media app, says Mattias Beijmo, digitization expert. The app Tiktok has taken the world by storm in just a couple of years. But due to the fact that the Chinese ownership company is in turn tied to the Chinese state, governments and authorities around the world have raised the alarm. In Sweden, several authorities have already banned the app for their employees, last week the Armed Forces banned their employees from having Tiktok on their work mobile phones. There is simply a problem of knowing where the data that Tiktok stores ultimately ends up and most importantly in whose hands. Blacklisted apps In a survey conducted by TV4 Nyheterna, almost a quarter of all 178 municipalities and regions that responded stated that Tiktok is prohibited or cannot be installed on work phones. And roughly 37 percent are now investigating whether the app should be banned. In Halmstad, there is a blacklist and a whitelist for which apps can technically be installed on work phones. – We work with whitelisted and also blacklisted applications, where Tiktok is included along with many other applications, says Nicklas Jarl, head of IT service in Halmstad municipality. What other blacklisted apps do you not want to go into. Halmstad municipality, on the other hand, has a Tiktok account aimed at young people, but it is disconnected from the municipality’s IT environment. Data may have been leaked But according to Mattias Beijmo, digitization expert, the damage may have already been done when it comes to what kind of information has spread from, for example, municipal employees’ work phones – and the problem extends further than just Tiktok. – Information about all the people who use Tiktok has been spread outside the country’s borders, just like it is done in Facebook, Instagram or any other social media app, he says. He himself does not see a necessity for all authorities to ban Tiktok on work phones, but rather to identify who has information that absolutely must not fall into the wrong hands. – Authorities, municipalities, regions and companies need to think about whether there are certain employees whose movements, communication and other data really shouldn’t end up in the wrong hands. They should not have social media apps of any kind on their phone, he says. Watch the interview with the digitization expert in the player above.
t4-general
Every fourth Swedish municipality bans Tiktok on work mobiles
