The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Shapps urged to quit TikTok over security fears
New Defence Secretary is prolific user of the app with 15,000 followers but ‘needs to be taken seriously’
‘You cannot de-link personal and ministerial accounts in such a highprofile position’
‘[He’ll get] the mother of all briefings when he walks into MoD over mobile phone use’
GRANT SHAPPS is facing calls to quit TikTok in the wake of his appointment as Defence Secretary amid security fears around the social media app.
TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has been banned from government phones because of its ability to collect and store large amounts of data, which could potentially include sensitive information.
Mr Shapps, appointed to the new role on Thursday, is a prolific TikTok user who has posted more than 200 videos to the platform, including a montage two days ago depicting his recent ministerial visit to Ukraine.
He reacted to the ban on official devices in March by insisting he would remain on the platform and use it on his personal phones, which is allowed under the Government’s policy. Since joining the site, he has amassed almost 15,000 followers. His clips largely consist of clips of his day-to-day engagements across the four Cabinet posts he has held in the past year prior to his defence appointment.
Yesterday, senior Tory backbenchers urged Mr Shapps to stop using TikTok, arguing it is incompatible with his new role. Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a former party leader who has been sanctioned by Beijing, said: “I recommend now that he revisits his decision and that he recognises that they pose a threat – otherwise they wouldn’t have been banned from Government phones. So in his situation, he should come off it, frankly.”
Tim Loughton, another Tory backbencher to be sanctioned by China, added: “You cannot de-link personal and ministerial TikTok accounts when you are in such a high-profile government position. It is not sustainable.”
Mark Francois, a former Armed Forces minister, said there was “little the Chinese intelligence services would like more” than to have Mr Shapps regularly using TikTok.
“If Grant Shapps, who has no military experience, wants to persuade likely sceptical Armed Forces personnel that he takes the defence of the realm seriously, a front foot start would be to publicly disavow any further use of TikTok, at least while he remains in that post,” he said.
It has also been claimed that it could pass information to its parent company which in turn could give data to the Chinese government, but the firm said it has never been asked by the government to remove any content and would not do so if asked. It also strongly denies links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Representatives from TikTok met with the National Cyber Security Centre, an arm of GCHQ, in March in a bid to reassure MPs it is not a national security threat. The US, Canada and the European Union have also banned gova ernment employees from installing TikTok on devices that they use for work.
TikTok sources pointed out that the Government had said its device ban was precautionary step and not prompted by a specific threat and strongly refuted “baseless” claims around China. One pointed to previous comments from Sir Jeremy Fleming, the former head of GCHQ, who said he would not be concerned if his own children used TikTok.
A source close to Mr Shapps insisted he did not use TikTok on his personal phone, and said that his account is managed by constituency staff. They denied that he had deleted the app from his phone over the row.
The source said: “Along with the Ministry of Defence, which maintains a long-standing official TikTok account, Grant knows that TikTok can be a valuable tool for communicating with his constituents. Aware of security concerns, he doesn’t have the app on his phone and the account is instead managed by his constituency staff.”
Tobias Ellwood, the Tory chairman defence select committee, predicted Mr Shapps would be “getting the mother of all briefings when he walks into the MoD” over mobile phone use.