british government will ban “with immediate effect” the use of the Chinese app TikTok on government phones due to concerns about cybersecurity, as explained this Thursday in the House of Commons by the Chief of Staff, Oliver Dowden.

The restrictions to be implemented will affect the work set of mobile civil servants and ministers, however not to their personal cell phone. The veto came after an opinion was issued by experts from the British National Cybersecurity Center regarding data protection. “This is the right decision based on the risks specific to government cellphones,” Dowden said in the House.

Thus, Executive Rishi Sunak has turned 180 degrees with respect to the position expressed a few weeks ago by the Secretary for Science, Innovation and Technology, Michelle Donelan, who told the media ‘Politico’ that Britain will not join the ban set by European Commission, that forces employees uninstall TikTok before March 15th. The Head of Science added that owning the app was a user’s “personal choice”.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THREATS TO EXPAND SOCIAL NETWORKS

The United States government has required the company that owns the popular TikTok app, Chinese company ByteDance, to distribute shares if it wants to continue operating on its territory, a move that has seen after two years of negotiations between the country and the company that owns the appquestionable about the protection of the data of its more than one hundred million users in the North American country.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) will demand that parent company ByteDance sell its stake in the app, according to information from ‘The Wall Street Journal’, which also details that 60% of the company’s shares are owned by global investors20% for its employees and another 20% for its founders.

A spokesperson for TikTok, Brooke Oberwetter, has expressed doubts about the feasibility of this roadmap in a statement: “If the aim is to protect national security, sharing shares does not solve the problem, a change in ownership (of the app) will not impose any new restrictions on access or the flow of data.”

He also suggested that the best way to address the US government’s concerns was to establish a United States user protection system based in that country, with “robust monitoring” by third partiesbetter monitoring and verification, processes they ensure are in place.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew going to the United States Congress next week to declare in view of which would address the matter, although the White House has not directly confirmed or denied the information from ‘The Wall Street Journal’.

BEAT BETWEEN CHINA AND THE USA

In February, the United States Administration ordered to remove the application from all authorized phone devices, a decision ridiculed by the Chinese government: “How should the world’s leading superpower be afraid of young people’s favorite app?” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said the United States misused the “concept of national security” and its own strength to punish foreign companies.