Bytedance-owned Tiktok is unarguably one of the most popular social networks across the globe with billions of people from different geographies engaging with user-generated content. However, over the past few years, several countries have banned Tiktok primarily due to security concerns surrounding the Chinese company.
Several governments and privacy experts have accused Tiktok of sharing user data — including biometrics, location, and browsing history — with the authoritarian Chinese regime. While Bytedance has denied all the allegations, several countries who’re yet to put a blanket bank on the Tiktok have banned it on the phones of government officials.
Last week, New Zealand joined the rank of countries that banned the app on government-related devices, with the Scottish parliament pushing for a similar move. Here we’ve listed all the countries and regions that have banned Tiktok.
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Countries where TikTok is banned
At the time of writing, Tiktok is banned in the following countries.
- India
- Pakistan
- UK
- USA
- Canada
- Belgium
- Denmark
- Taiwan
- Afghanistan
- New Zealand
- Scotland
- European Union (EU)
In June 2020, India banned Tiktok alongwith 58 other apps from Chinese developers citing security concerns — becoming the first country to implement a blanket ban on the app.
In mid-March 2023, the Biden administration demanded that Bytedance sell Tiktok or face a ban after banning the app from government devices in December 2022. The Canadian government also followed their neighbours in banning Tiktok from government phones.
In addition to the US, Belgium, Denmark and the UK also prohibited Tiktok on government devices in March 2023. Denmark enforced the ban on March 6, followed by Belgium on March 10 and UK on March 16.
Pakistan has banned Tiktok several times since 2020. Afghanistan banned Tiktok in April 2022 and Taiwan in December 2022.
On February 28, 2023, Tiktok was also banned on all EU members and staff devices — including personal devices — of the three primary EU institutions the European Parliament, the European Commission and the EU Council.
One of the latest to join the list, New Zealand has said that Tiktok cannot be installed on devices held by legislators starting April 2023 due to security concerns.
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