Tiktok banned from South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service’s corporate devices

Steven Locking, IT Manager at South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue service, told a meeting of the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority today (April 3) that the service has adopted the government’s policy to ban the app.

He told the meeting: “We were very aware of the government’s policy and we have adopted the same government policy for ourselves, so TikTok is banned from all corporate devices in South Yorkshire now.

“There are no five service applications or systems that are allowed to get to TikTok at all. If we want to use TikTok, as discussed with our corporate comms team, they have to use separate devices, not corporate ones.

“There’s no access to TikTok on any corporate devices at all. They can use it on their own personal device, but that’s not a risk to South Yorkshire Fire.”

The Cabinet Office announced last month that the app would be banned on all on government electronic devices, following data access concerns.

Cabinet Office Ministers ordered a security review, investigating the potential vulnerability of government data from social media apps on devices and risks around how sensitive information could be accessed and used by some platforms.

The government say exemptions will only be granted by security teams on a case-by-case basis, with ministerial clearance as appropriate, and with security mitigations put in place.

TikTok has strongly denied its app posed a security risk.

SYFRS’ TikTok account currently has almost 152,000 followers, and went viral last year after posting a video in support of the LGBT+ community for Pride month.