Council bans Tiktok on devices

North Yorkshire Council has banned social media app TikTok from staff devices, due to concerns over security.

The council claimed that the volume and depth of the data being captured and stored posed a potential risk that it “does not believe is acceptable”.

TikTok is a Chinese owned app used for creating, sharing and discovering short videos.

The company said it should be “judged on facts”, rather than “commonly reported inaccuracies and misplaced fears”.

Assistant Director Technology for North Yorkshire Council, Madeline Hoskin, said: “North Yorkshire Council does not allow the media sharing app TikTok on any of its corporate devices and it is not approved to be used for any work purpose. In addition to this, we would strongly discourage any use of the app or website on personal devices that are also being used for work purposes.

“We have made this decision because both the TikTok app and the website collect a lot of personal and very detailed information that is stored outside of the UK, and though currently this data is predominantly used for targeted advertising, the volume and depth of the data being captured and stored poses a potential risk we do not believe is acceptable.”

A TikTok spokesperson said: "We believe recent bans are based on fundamental misconceptions and driven by wider geopolitics, in which TikTok and our community around the world play no part. We remain committed to working with governments and partners to address any security concerns, but ask to be judged on facts, not fears, and treated equally to our competitors.

“We have already begun implementing a comprehensive plan to further protect our US and European user data, building on the principles of local data storage and introducing third-party independent oversight of our approach."

According to the company, TikTok's user data is stored outside of China, and European user data will begin to be stored in its new European data centres.

Last month, the UK Government also made the decision to ban ministers from using the app on their work phones following a security review.

Lottie Winson