US bank Wells Fargo has asked employees to delete social network TikTok from their work phones due to concerns about the security.
The bank's staff at the ecommerce group had received a memo early on Friday demanding TikTok be uninstalled from any device that accessed corporate email, citing “security risks” related to the app.
“We have identified a small number of Wells Fargo employees with corporate-owned devices who had installed the TikTok application on their device,” a spokesman for the bank wrote in the emailed statement according to Bloomberg.
“Due to concerns about TikTok’s privacy and security controls and practices, and because corporate-owned devices should be used for company business only, we have directed those employees to remove the app from their devices.”
Earlier on Friday, Amazon also told employees to delete TikTok from mobile devices they use to access company email, but it later said that was a mistake.
In a statement, a company spokesperson said an email urging employees to immediately remove the short-video app from their devices was sent "in error."
"There is no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok," the spokesperson said.
In its earlier email to employees Friday morning, Amazon said that due to "security risks, the TikTok app is no longer permitted on mobile devices that access Amazon email."
TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance and has long insisted its business outside China, including content moderation and data policies, is not dictated by its managers within the mainland.
The company has repeatedly denied allegations that it poses a threat to U.S. national security. “User security is of the utmost importance to TikTok – we are fully committed to respecting the privacy of our users,” a TikTok spokesperson said.
