UK Parliament shuts TikTok account over doubts of data breach by China

London, Aug 10: Citing that Tiktok is providing user data to the Chinese govt, the British Parliament has shut down its TikTok account. The British Parliament has shut down its TikTok account after some Members of Parliament sanctioned by China raised concerns about data security.

 

 

 

 

Just six days after opening the account, parliamentary authorities confirmed they had deactivated the social media profile. The Members of Parliament expressed concerned about the relationship between TikTok and its Chinese owner ByteDance. Senior politicians expressed doubt that the TikTok user data is shared with Chinese multinational internet technology company ByteDance.

 

The American media outlet, Politico, citing a letter to the speakers of the Commons and Lords, revealed that Tory politicians including Tom Tugendhat, Iain Duncan Smith and Nus Ghani, all subject to sanctions by Beijing, had called for the account to be taken down. A spokesperson for the U.K. parliament said, "Based on member feedback, we are closing the pilot U.K. parliament TikTok account earlier than we had planned. The account was a pilot initiative while we tested the platform as a way of reaching younger audiences with relevant content about parliament."

 

 

 

 

 

A TikTok spokesperson said, "While it is disappointing that the British parliament will no longer be able to connect with the millions of people who use TikTok in the UK, we reiterate the offer to reassure those Members of Parliament who raised concerns and clarify any inaccuracies about our platform." The group of politicians had said they were "surprised and disappointed" with the decision to set it up.

 

 

They pointed out that China's National Intelligence Law requires companies to yield data to government authorities upon request, and expressed doubt over a TikTok executive's reassurances to Parliament in 2021 that its user data is not shared with ByteDance in China, as per the media portal.