French senators want a wider TikTok ban

PARIS — French senators want Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok to be banned for the staff of strategic companies, according to a 183-page long report released Thursday.

“ByteDance and TikTok are dependent on China on every level: technical, capital, political and legal,” the rapporteur, Senator Claude Malhuret, told reporters.

In March, the French Senate launched an inquiry committee into the popular platform, in a bid to look at “the use of the social network TikTok, its exploitation of data, its strategy of influence, propaganda and disinformation.”

After weeks of hearings — including with Digital Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, regulators, TikTok France lobbyists and researchers — the lawmakers have listed 21 recommendations.

Among them is an extension of the TikTok ban on civil servants’ phones to the staff of so-called operators of vital importance. For security reasons, the list of such operators is not public, but includes organizations in the military, energy, finance, transport and water-management sectors.

Senators also want more guarantees on the “Clover Project” — the plan to host EU personal data on European soil — as well as on the shareholding of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. If the company hasn’t replied to questions about intellectual property, its algorithms, ByteDance’s shareholding structure, privacy guarantees and content moderation, among other things, they argue the government should ban the app on national security grounds.

“We’re under the impression there’s a real clash between TikTok’s and its managers’ protests about transparency and a clearly intended opacity,” said Malhuret.

Océane Herrero contributed reporting.