Chinese-owned social media app TikTok will be banned from government phones in the United Kingdom. The ban will include phones used by government ministers and civil servants, according to reports.
ByteDance, the company which owns TikTok, has been accused of handing users’ data to the Chinese government. The company has strongly denied this.
There has been no official comment yet from the UK government, but a statement to MPs by Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office, is expected later today.
Earlier this week, the UK’s security minister Tom Tugendhat asked the country’s National Cyber Security Centre to look into banning the app from government phones.
The UK will be the latest country to join the ban, with Belgium, the United States and the European Commission deciding to do so in the past month.
Our journalists are working to update this story.