After the US, Canada and some European countries have already moved forward, Austria has now decided to ban TikTok on corporate cell phones for federal employees. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner announced this to the Council of Ministers on Wednesday.
This ensures more data security for state organizations in the public sector, the ÖVP politician emphasized, who also presented some current figures from the crime statistics. Crimes on the internet increased by 30.4 percent compared to the previous year. According to Karner, fraud offenses played a very important role in this.
TikTok is a Chinese state-owned company
But civil servants can also continue to use the popular app in the future, but only on their private devices. Such “open phones” can also be used by law enforcement when TikTok investigation is part of the investigation.
Politicians’ TikTok channels can continue to function like this. Karner justified the move with accompanying recommendations from an inter-ministerial working group and noted that TikTok is a Chinese state-owned company.
However, the company’s management insists that it operates independently from Beijing. TikTok parent ByteDance is not owned or controlled by any government or government agency. “Let me be clear: ByteDance is not a representative of China or any other country,” CEO Shou Zi Chew recently told the US Congress.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
