Belgium bans TikTok from government phones According to US-EU

Belgium is banning TikTok on government phones over cybersecurity, privacy and disinformation concerns, the country's prime minister said on Friday, mirroring recent actions by other agencies in Europe and the United States, or was paid by the federal government for at least six months to post on the site by Alexandra de Croo.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chinese company ByteDance has long claimed that it does not share data with the Chinese government and that its data is not stored in China.

TikTok unveiled new measures this week to address user privacy concerns in Europe.

But the three main European Union institutions and the Danish Ministry of Defense have already ordered employees to remove the app from devices used for work purposes. Similar bans have been imposed in Canada and the United States.

The battle for TikTok is part of a larger global rivalry between China and the US.S. and its western allies for technological and economic supremacy.

De Croo said the Belgian ban stems from warnings from the State Security Service and its cybersecurity center that the app could collect user data and change algorithms to manipulate messages and content.

They also warned that TikTok could be forced to spy for Beijing, he said without going into further detail.

"We are in a new geopolitical context in which influence and surveillance between states has shifted to the digital world," de Croo said in an online statement."We must not be naive: TikTok is now a Chinese company that has to work with the secret services. It's the reality. It's common sense not to use it on federal service equipment."