French National Assembly advises lawmakers to limit use of foreign social media

Paris, Mar 23 (Agency) The lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, urges the lawmakers to limit the use of US and Chinese social networks due to security reasons, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing an internal email.The recommendation list includes TikTok, Snapchat, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, and Instagram (banned in Russia as an extremist organization), as the personal data collected by these platforms could be used by foreign intelligence services, the report said.

At the same time, the National Assembly advises lawmakers to use French software WIMI to coordinate their work, the report noted.Earlier in March, French government spokesman Olivier Veran said that French President Emmanuel Macron and all ministers refused to use Chinese video-sharing app TikTok on government devices due to security concerns about user data being accessed by the Chinese government.