Mr. Shapps is an active TikTok user with over 200 videos posted to the platform. Credit: Holly Adams/Bloomberg
Grant Shapps faces calls to leave TikTok after his appointment as secretary of defense amid security concerns surrounding the social media app.
TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance , have been banned from government phones because of their ability to collect and store large amounts of data that could potentially include sensitive information.
Mr Shapps, who became secretary of defense on Thursday, is an avid TikTok user who has posted on the platform over 200 videos, including a two-day-old montage depicting his recent ministerial visit to Ukraine.
In March, he responded to the ban on official devices by insisting that he stay on the platform and use it on his personal phones, which is allowed by government policy.
Since he joined the site, it gained almost 15,000 subscribers. . His videos mainly consist of videos of his day-to-day activities in the four cabinet posts he held last year before being appointed to the Defense position.
However, a source close to Mr. Shapps insisted that he did not use TikTok on his personal phone and said his account was managed by constituency officials.
A source said, «Along with the Department of Defense, which has long had an official TikTok account, Grant knows that TikTok can be a valuable tool for connecting with his constituents.
>»For security reasons, he did not install this app on his phone and the account is managed by his constituency.»
The new minister defense recently published a message during a ministerial visit to Kiev. Credit: TikTok
On Friday, senior members of the Conservative Party urged Mr. Shapps to stop using TikTok, arguing that it is incompatible with his new role.
Sir Ian Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader sanctioned by Beijing, said: “I recommend that he now reconsider and recognize that they are a threat – otherwise they would not be banned from using government phones. So in his situation, frankly, he should give it up.»
Tim Lawton, another member of the Conservative Party under Chinese sanctions, added: «You can't break the link between personal and ministerial accounts. TikTok posts when you're in such a high government position. It's unstable.»
Marc François, a former minister of the armed forces, said «Chinese intelligence agencies would like little more» than Mr. Shapps' regular use of TikTok.
«If Grant Shapps, who has no military experience, wants to convince likely skeptical military personnel that he is serious about protecting the kingdom, the first step would be to publicly deny any further use of TikTok, at least as long as he remains in this post,” he said.
It has also been claimed that it may share information with its parent company, which in turn may provide the data to the Chinese government, but the firm has stated that the Chinese government has never asked it to remove any content and will not do so if asked to. . He also vehemently denies ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
TikTok representatives met in March with the National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC), a division of GCHQ, in an attempt to reassure MPs that it was not a national security threat.
The «mother of all briefings»
The United States, Canada and the European Union also banned public employees to install TikTok on the devices they use for work.
TikTok sources noted that the government has said the device ban is a precautionary measure and not driven by a specific threat, and has vehemently denied the «unsubstantiated» claims regarding China, saying it takes strict data security measures and has never shared data with the Chinese. the government and they will never do it.
One also pointed to previous comments by Sir Jeremy Fleming, the former head of GCHQ, who said he would not be bothered if his own children used TikTok, adding, that it “tells my child about how they feel about their personal data on their device.”
Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Conservative Committee of the powerful House of Commons Defense Select Committee, predicted that Mr Shapps would “force mother of all briefings when he enters the Ministry of Defense» due to the use of a mobile phone.
He told BBC Newsnight: «This raises concerns that not only China, but other countries will take advantage of this . It shows where the conflict is heading and how intelligence can actually be generated through things like TikTok.”
We contacted the Department of Defense and TikTok for comment.
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