“Entertainment” applications are prohibited on government officials’ smartphones. They pose a threat to cybersecurity. Exceptions may be granted. Not so long ago, Jean-Baptiste Jebbari broke through on TikTok while he was still the transport minister. But everything has changed. This Friday, March 24, 2023, the French government has announced a ban on certain apps on the office phones of government employees. As such, public administration officials must now ditch Netflix, Twitter, Snapchat, Candy Crush, or even TikTok on their state-provided smartphones. This ban, effective immediately, follows concerns about the network. social Chinese. Should he be targeted more than others, the French government took the opportunity to punish his colleagues as well. Thus, no jealousy.
Why ban entertainment apps on government officials’ smartphones?
At the moment, the government has not yet provided an accurate list of relevant applications. However, anything considered entertainment (and thus accessory) is banned from the smartphones of French bureaucrats. The reason is quite simple: the cybersecurity of the country is in the spotlight. Last week, the CEO of TikTok defended son beak and nail application face in the US Congress. With very little success. The network is accused of spying for the Chinese government. social note many entities. Many countries express distrust of the ByteDance app. The United States, as well as the United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union, have decided to ban TikTok from using professional phones of their representatives. In this sense, the French government has considered this issue. This was announced in a press release by Minister of Transformation and Civil Service Stanislas Guerini. As such, he clarified that these “entertainment apps do not meet the level of cyber security and protection enough data to deploy on administrative equipment. Thus, these applications may pose a risk to protection data from these administrations and their officials.”
To guarantee the cyber security of our administrations and our public officials, @governmentFR decided to ban entertainment apps like TikTok from government officials’ work phones. @jnbarrot peak.twitter.com/avxtpKZ6uu — Stanislas Guerini (@StanGuerini) March 24, 2023
Of course, individual exceptions may be granted in some exceptional cases. In particular, for institutional communication needs. But otherwise, officials will now have to do without Netflix, TikTok, Twitter, or even Instagram. As they say, prevention is better than cure.
