Not enough is known about Tiktok’s data collection yet. According to the expert, information often ends up outside the EU area.
Several the Finnish authorities instruct their employees not to download the video application Tiktok to their official devices, but the Chinese-owned application is mainly still allowed on personal phones.
At least the Police Administration, the Defense Forces and the Protection Police (Supo) have instructed their employees on the use of both Tiktok and other social media platforms.
Tiktok, owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance, is a very popular application for sharing short videos worldwide. The application’s data collection has raised concerns in several Western countries.
With the police are separate devices intended for social media use, says the chief inspector Anna Lind About the Police Board’s communication.
“We have been given such instructions that, in general, all social media channels are managed on separate devices.”
According to Lindi, the Police Board cannot order employees’ private devices and their use in their free time.
There are also restrictions on the use of social media by conscripts and staff of the Defense Forces, but they are not service-specific. So they also apply to platforms other than Tiktok, says the online communications manager of the General Staff Tuomas Pulsa.
“You don’t use social media during service time, it doesn’t belong there. The applications themselves may not be installed on official devices, but there are certain applications that can be installed.”
According to Pulsa, no social media application is on the list of applications allowed on office phones. The use of personal devices is not restricted by the Defense Forces. According to Pulsa, it depends on the situation whether a personal phone can be carried during work tasks. However, personal devices are not used to manage work tasks.
I suppose about communication, STT is told by email that even its employees cannot install Tiktok on their office phones.
In addition, Supo recommends that employees not even install Tiktok on their personal phones.
“Tiktok collects an extraordinary amount of information about the mobile device and its user. The employees of the security and intelligence services naturally have to take care of information security more closely than usual”, explains the communication.
In addition, at least the Finnish independence celebration fund Sitra is denied Tiktok on their devices.
Helsingin Sanomat by the coalition has banned the use of Tiktok on work phones. Party communication designer Emmi Syrjäniemi told the newspaper that the coalition’s communication has advised members of the parliamentary group to remove the application from their work phones for data security reasons.
Instead, for example, the Basic Finns actively used Tiktok in their election campaigning.
Read more: The coalition has banned the use of Tiktok on work phones
Read more: The young Tiktok star of the fundamental Finns came from a small town to become a member of parliament – “There must be something in that guy”
Individual according to Chief Inspector Lindi, the police use Tiktok for work purposes, but that is also done with a separate device according to the instructions. In addition, at least the Helsinki Police Department has its own account in the video application.
The service, popular among young people, has more than 150 million users in the country, and is the second most popular source of online entertainment after Netflix. Because of the young user base, according to Lindi, it is also good that the police are present on the platform.
“There is also the point of view of whether we as an organization can withdraw from it because it is not data secure for us and leave the young people there among themselves. However, is it better for the authorities to be there, but do it consciously and with precautions,” says Lind.
According to the Inspector General, the Police Board is renewing its social media guidelines this spring. According to him, the revised instructions take a slightly more detailed position on devices, data security and risk management, among other things.
Also Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, collects extensive information about users. Social media waste has a data protection officer Anu Talus including many similar features.
“One key difference is, of course, that in the case of Tiktok, data is transferred to China and from Meta to the United States. These are, of course, very different states in terms of legal systems.”
According to Talus, attention must be paid to a couple of important things in social media applications.
“One is that they collect a lot of information about their users, and it is not necessarily always clear to the users how and how much information is collected.”
According to the Data Protection Commissioner, it is not only a matter of what content users upload to the services, but also of, for example, which other pages are visited.
“Based on that, either advertising or some other way of influencing people can be targeted.”
According to Talus, data collection should be very clear and transparent to its targets.
Another thing to remember is that data is transferred from the services outside the EU.
“If we now look at Tiktok’s privacy statement, its data collection is quite extensive, for example face and voice recognition.”
Tiktok’s activities are monitored in the EU by the Irish Data Protection Authority. According to Talus, the authority is conducting several investigations into both Tiktok and other social media platforms.
Several Western countries have issued similar bans or recommendations to remove Tiktok from the work devices of government employees. For example, Norway, New Zealand, Great Britain, Australia and the United States have restricted the use of the application on the work phones of government agencies. In addition, for example, the European Commission has issued similar guidelines.
Read more: Australia also bans the use of Tiktok on government devices
The Swedish army has also announced that it will ban the use of Tiktok on work phones for security reasons.
According to the decision seen by news agency AFP, the armed forces justify the decision with, among other things, information on how the application uses user data. Spokesman for the Armed Forces Guna Graufeldt told AFP that the use of mobile phones and tablets in itself can be a security risk, which is why Tiktok is not wanted on work devices.
Tiktok has admitted that employees in China gained access to at least the information of the US accounts, but the company has denied that the information was given to the Chinese authorities.
I tiktok a Singaporean CEO Shou Zi Chew spent several hours before the Energy and Commerce Committee of the US Congress in late March when he tried to prevent authorities from banning the app from being used in the US.
“The Chinese state neither owns nor controls ByteDance’s operations. I believe that clear and transparent rules that would apply to all technology companies would be needed. Ownership is not a key factor when dealing with these issues,” summed up Chew.
Chairman of the committee Cathy McMorris Rodgers disagreed.
“Your company has repeatedly chosen the path that includes more manipulation, more supervision and more control. Your company should be banned”, the chairman said when opening the hearing.
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