Norway Advises Against TikTok Usage by Government Workers
On Tuesday, the justice minister of Norway, whose frequent usage of TikTok has previously gotten her into trouble, suggested that government workers abstain from using the Chinese app on their work devices.
Based on concerns about espionage, the advice, which follows similar actions and prohibitions in several Western nations, also applies to the encrypted Russian messaging software Telegram.
In a statement, Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl stated that “in their risk assessments, the Norwegian intelligence agencies pick out Russia and China as the primary risk factors for Norway’s security interests.”
They pick out social media as a platform that is frequently used by potentially harmful actors and other people who wish to mislead us or influence us through false information, she added.
The advice is applicable to all office equipment used by government employees that is linked to its computer networks.
The youngest government official, Mehl, 29, found herself in the spotlight last year after she finally acknowledged installing TikTok on her work phone after maintaining a protracted quiet amid app-related rumors.
She emphasized that a month later, she had erased it.
She said that she had done so in order to connect with the app’s target demographic—young people.
According to the ministry, government workers can still use TikTok and Telegram if necessary for work-related reasons, but only on devices that are not linked to the government’s digital infrastructure.
TikTok has been outlawed on work devices by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Commission.
TikTok stated in December that staff had spied on journalists using the data after admitting in November that some employees in China had access to user data from Europe.
Nonetheless, the company has stated that the Chinese government has no access to or control over its data.
