France bans all recreational apps – including TikTok – from government devices
- Reference: 1679891587
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/27/france_bans_all_recreational_apps/
- Source link:
The nation's ministère de la transformation et de la fonction publiques last Friday issued a [1]statement [PDF] announcing the policy, which minister of transformation and public service Stanislas Guerini justified on grounds that no recreational apps have sufficiently robust security for them to be deployed on government-owned devices.
The minister warned that the apps represent a risk to data stored by government agencies and their employees.
[2]
Guerini stated that some exceptions will be allowed, but only for apps needed for official communication.
[3]
[4]
The announcement doesn't include a date for removing apps from government devices.
Several nations have already banned TikTok from government-owned devices on grounds that the app's Chinese staffers can potentially see user data.
[5]
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was last week grilled by the US congress's House Committee on Energy and Commerce. It didn't go well, with several members saying the app should be banned outright – not just from government devices – because TikTok is linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
[6]Utah outlaws kids' social media addiction, sets digital curfew
[7]TikTok cannot be considered a private company, says Australian report
[8]UK.gov bans TikTok from its devices as a 'precaution' over spying fears
[9]Beijing's done its sums and found a billion netizens watching short video services
Shou told lawmakers that TikTok's "Project Texas" efforts to ensure that non-Chinese users' data cannot be viewed within China would safeguard individual and US security. Committee members were not persuaded, and a bi-partisan consensus emerged to sanction TikTok.
On Sunday House speaker Kevin McCarthy signalled a law would soon be tabled to sanction TikTok.
It's very concerning that the CEO of TikTok can't be honest and admit what we already know to be true—China has access to TikTok user data.
The House will be moving forward with legislation to protect Americans from the technological tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party. — Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) [10]March 26, 2023
It remains unclear if that bill will force a sale of TikTok's US operations, or ban the app.
A forced sale would be hard to execute. China's government has pointed out that TikTok's owner, ByteDance, could not do a deal without government approval. And with China's Foreign Ministry [11]characterizing the US government's attitude to TikTok as a "xenophobic witch hunt" it's hard to see Beijing making it easy for a US entity to take control of the social app. ®
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[1] https://www.transformation.gouv.fr/files/presse/cp_interdiction_applications_recreatives_telephone_pro_agents.pdf
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZCFpR97yCJj7bHLWMWNX1gAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZCFpR97yCJj7bHLWMWNX1gAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZCFpR97yCJj7bHLWMWNX1gAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZCFpR97yCJj7bHLWMWNX1gAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/24/utah_social_media_laws/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/19/asia_tech_news_roundup/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/16/ukgov_bans_tiktok_from_work_devices/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/07/china_billion_short_video_users/
[10] https://twitter.com/SpeakerMcCarthy/status/1639980623539445760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[11] https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/202303/t20230324_11048722.html
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I doubt most politicians are using social media directly to peddle themselves. It's more likely that everything that goes out is carefully curated (Trump types excepted).
What the Poli's do on their personal phones (or more likely what their social media lackeys do on their personal phones) is completely up to them.
But I can never understand why people would want any social media programs on a work phone! Work and private life are separate things for f%&ks sake!
At work, I'm currently unable to use a specific program, because the only way to use it is to link it to a mobile phone for 2FA. I do not have a company phone, and so I refuse to link it to my personal phone. IT's response was to tell me to get a company phone. My managers response to that was that I can get a company phone when it comes out of IT's budget. To be clear, I dont want a company phone, and find it ridiculous that my firm would want people doing anything related to work on a personal device. It's almost certain that my personal phone is not as well protected as a company phone (since I can download any app I want, or open any site I want), so it's just opening up an attack vector against the firm. And I dont want anything from my firm on my personal phone, since that paints a big Target sign on my back for anyone focusing on my firm. Even more annoying since there's a big focus on cyber security at my firm at the moment (due to a supplier being hit by ransomware a couple of months back), and yet bring up a topic like this and you get blank stares...
Oh well, all the top brass have company phone, so naturally they cant see the problems at all...
If it's that high stakes, why can't IT get half-way serious and buy Yubikeys for employees? They start at 25-35 currency units (dollars, pounds, euros...) each and are more secure than any mobile phone.
This applies to government business phones, not to political parties. And there's still the explicit possibility of using them for official government communication. Spokespeople got to communicate on whatever the platform of the day is.
For security purposes …?
..not because they are supposed to be bloody well working?
Removing non-professional apps from professional devices is a good idea.
Next one: stop that nonsense that is BYOD in governmental agencies.
What about the gander
If it's bad for the Government why do they not also consider it bad for the people ?
Re: What about the gander
Government: "the who?"
I wonder about the title, since the article pivots very hard on TikTok and US domestic politics, more than half its length is about that.
Also, so far, it's the US who've been caught in the act of spying on EU leaders. So it seems the part where Twitter, Instagram and all are banned too would be worth a quick reminder.
Why the emphasis on TikTok???
"The government of France has banned TikTok – and all other recreational apps –"
a) TikTok wasn't specifically mentioned and (b) it's clear that it isn't a subtext referral only to TikTok. For me it is astounding, by the way, that this is something new or has to be announced as such, since I would assume that recreational apps and websites are routinely banned from work computers. It's not just for security, it's because a work phone is assigned if you need it to work with. Use your own personal phone for whatever you want.
Incidentally there are AFAIK also phone architectures that can have 'work' and 'personal' profiles where the whole filesystems are kept seperate at OS level (although I guess that still could be theoretically hacked through an app installed in personal-space)
Is their Government anticipating a 'Paris Spring'?
... and so they're banning apps in the Interests of Public Safety?
[1]Committee of Public Safety .
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Public_Safety
The words stable, door and bolted immediately sprang to mind.
It's amazing to me that this isn't mandatory in every country for every government-supplied device. Especially given how clueless most politicians seem to be about tech matters.
Re: The words stable, door and bolted immediately sprang to mind.
You reckon? Twitter was the best platform for the 45th US President. Particularly for communications and Covfefe.
"Meanwhile the US contemplates drastic action"
Conspiracy hat on.
Meta have been oh so desperately try to gain ground lost to TikTok.
Ban TikTok.
Problem solved.
Personally I think it's down to China's lax laws on pornography, after all they allow statues from the middle ages to appear on the app
A much more sensible approach
I think the French approach is much more sensible than what we've seen in other countries.
Granted, TikTok goes to extreme lengths in spying on its users (it's essentially a key logger, among other things), but its business model is not that different from many other "free" social media services. It makes much more sense to ban specific practices or types of apps than to single out a single app but leave the other data predators untouched.
I understand why it's hard in the US to ban domestic apps from major political donors but I don't see why the UK/Finnish/Portuguese/Norwegian government couldn't ban Meta apps on its devices for instance.
Do all these bans mean that the banning governments (and opposition's) won't have any presence on tiktok, including at election time? Never used it - or even seen it - myself, but an absence of politicians can't be a bad thing!