The BBC has advised staff to delete TikTok from corporate phones because of privacy and security fears. From a report: The BBC seems to be the first UK media organisation to issue the guidance – and only the second in the world after Denmark’s public service broadcaster. The BBC said it would continue to use the platform for editorial and marketing purposes for now. […] The big fear is that data harvested by the platform from corporate phones could be shared with the Chinese government by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, because its headquarters are in Beijing.
In an email to staff on Sunday, it said: “The decision is based on concerns raised by government authorities worldwide regarding data privacy and security. If the device is a BBC corporate device, and you do not need TikTok for business reasons, TikTok should be deleted from the BBC corporate mobile device.” Staff with the app on a personal phone that they also use for work have been asked to contact the corporation’s Information Security team for further discussions, while it reviews concerns around TikTok.
Dominic Ponsford, editor-in-chief of journalism industry trade publication the Press Gazette, said it would be interesting to see what other media organizations decide to do. He told the BBC: “I suspect everyone’s chief technical officer will be looking at this very closely. Until now, news organizations have been very keen to use TikTok, because it’s been one of the fastest-growing social media platforms for news publishers over the last year, and it’s been a good source of audience and traffic. So most of the talk in the news media has been around encouraging TikTok rather than banning it.”
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