By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Parliament has decided to ban Chinese short video-sharing app TikTok from staff phones for security reasons, an EU official said on Tuesday, the latest EU institution to do so.
The ban will also apply to private devices with Parliament email and other network access installed on them, the official said, adding that the decision is expected to be announced soon.
The European Commission and the EU Council last week banned TikTok from staff phones, underlining growing concerns about the company owned by Chinese firm ByteDance and whether China’s government could use its app to harvest users’ data or advance its interests.
Beijing has regularly denied having any such intentions. TikTok is banned on U.S. Senate employees’ government-owned devices, with Canada adopting a similar decision on Monday. India has banned the app too.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, Editing by Louise Heavens)
