Rishi Sunak has been urged to ban government officials from using TikTok in line with the EU and US moves, amid growing cybersecurity fears over China.
Officials in Europe and the US have been told to limit use of the Chinese-owned social video app out of concern that Beijing could access the data.
The European Commission this week decided to suspend the use of TikTok on devices issued to staff and even on personal phones if they have official apps installed, after Washington last year banned federal employees from using the app on work devices.
However, the Prime Minister is currently resisting pressure to ban parliamentary staff and MPs from using TikTok, which has become increasingly popular with UK politicians.
A No 10 spokesman said he was “not aware” of any ban on Downing Street staff using the platform.
“Us [No 10] I have a TikTok account, but I don’t think we’ve put anything on it for a while now,” he said. “It is up to individual departments and ministers to choose which social media platforms they want to use.”
On Thursday, Conservative MP Luke Evans posted a 48-second video on the app, showing his 41,000 followers what it’s like to go through security to get into number 10.
Alicia Kearns, chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, told The Guardian: “We have now seen both the EU and the US take decisive action on TikTok over security concerns – the acquisition of our personal data by part of a hostile state. We run the risk of becoming a technology security laggard among free and open nations.
“The government should reconsider its policies and act to ban government officials and parliamentary staff from installing the app on any mobile phone used for work. We need an informed discussion across our country, including with our children, about the importance of our data and all that it can reveal about us, and how it can make us vulnerable.”
Tim Loughton, the Conservative MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, urged the prime minister to take “concerted action” against threats from the Chinese state. He said TikTok was, in effect, a “mega-state affiliated data collection organization” with which the UK should not deal in an equivalent manner to other Western multinational companies.
Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith added: “Even when your Western security officers show that TikTok poses a security risk to us in the UK, we seem to drag ourselves along, trying not to take action that might upset China.
“The prime minister has an opportunity to take control of China’s policy and this is a critical time to do so. I hope the government recognizes the danger China poses and immediately takes action on TikTok.”
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Last year, Parliament’s TikTok account was shut down after Kearns and several Conservative MPs raised concerns about the company’s links to China.
A letter last summer from Duncan Smith, Foreign Affairs Select Committee Chairman Tom Tugendhat and 1922 Committee Vice Chairman Nus Ghani stated that “the data security risks associated with the application are considerable.”
Former health secretary and reality TV contestant Matt Hancock is a regular user, while energy secretary Grant Shapps also has an account.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said he did not have TikTok and it was important to be “careful” with any social media site.
“TikTok is generally owned by a Chinese company and I think if you put your data there, you don’t just share it with the person who posts it. The caution is, be careful what you put on these things,” he told LBC.
