The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system, issued an emergency rule last week saying campuses must prohibit the use of several apps on their campuses, including TikTok. The university system’s order cited the “continued and increasing landscape of cyber threats against our universities.”
UCF’s announcement about the ban said the school was concerned that foreign governments may use social media apps, websites and platforms to collect user data and compromise devices. Several other universities told students and employees earlier in the week the app was prohibited on their campuses, including the University of Florida, Florida State University, Florida International University and Florida Atlantic University.
In a message to students and employees on Monday saying it was banning TikTok and five other apps, Florida State leaders said the school was following the lead of other public institutions across the country.
“These applications are identified to bring unnecessary risk due to their connection with the foreign governments and are known to collect user’s biometric data such as faceprints and voiceprints from the user’s content,” said the message from school leaders.
TikTok is not the only app “of concern” that Florida universities have now banned. Thelist of prohibited apps also includes WeChat, Vkontakte, Kaspersky, and Tencent QQ. TikTok, WeChat and Tencent QQ are Chinese-owned companies. The others are Russian-owned.
TikTok, in particular, has drawn scrutiny over the past several months. Leaders in the United States and other countries have expressed growing concern over TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government. TikTok, which is owned by Chinese technology company Bytedance, has said it doesn’t share data with the Chinese government. At the start of March, the White House gave all federal agencies 30 days to wipe the app from government devices. More than half of U.S. states have banned the app from official devices, as have Congress and the U.S. armed forces, the Associated Press reported this week.
More than 150 million Americans use TikTok, which is among the world’s most popular social media apps. Last week, the company’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, testified for more than six hours at a contentious Congressional hearing, the AP reported. Republican and Democratic lawmakers asked Chew about the implications of the app for America’s national security and the effect on the mental health of its users.
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