Wells Fargo has reportedly instructed employees who installed TikTok on company devices to remove the app, The Information reported. The company said it had “concerns about TikTok’s privacy and security controls and practices” in a statement to The Information.
It’s the latest company to raise security concerns about employees using the popular video-sharing app, which hit 2 billion downloads in April. On Friday, Amazon said it sent an email “in error” to employees asking them to remove TikTok from mobile devices with Amazon email addresses. The company later clarified that there had been “no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok.”
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, was one of several apps recently revealed to be accessing user clipboard data when running in the background. The practice was discovered via a new feature in beta versions of iOS 14, which alerts users when an app copies from the clipboard. TikTok says it has since removed the feature.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this week that the Trump administration was “looking at” banning TikTok, although it’s not entirely clear how such a ban would work in practice. Some branches of the US military have already banned the use of TikTok on government-owned devices.
TikTok and Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.
