Florida state universities ban TikTok, other apps from their campuses, citing Chinese ties
TikTok is officially banned across Florida state universities as many schools broke the news to students Wednesday following an emergency regulation passed last week.
On March 29, the State Board of Governors, which governs the state’s 12 public universities and colleges, adopted the new regulation, which requires state universities to remove banned technologies from any institution-owned device and to block them on their Wi-Fi networks. The ban applies to university students, faculty, staff and visitors.
This also comes after Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed in February a Digital Bill of Rights, which is going through the Florida Legislature. That bill would ban TikTok and other applications and software tied to to China on state and local government devices, along with at colleges, universities and public schools.
READ MORE: Florida lawmakers want to block TikTok, others from government devices and networks
These technologies, or apps, include:
▪ TikTok
▪ Tencent QQ
▪ VKontakte
▪ Kaspersky
The Miami Herald confirmed that Florida International University, the University of Florida and Florida State University told its faculty, staff and students on Wednesday that they are adhering to the regulation and blocking the apps.
Florida A&M University in Tallahassee banned TikTok on university-devices and Wi-Fi on March 7. “The application is deemed a threat to national security and privacy of users,” FAMU Chief Information Officer Robert Seniors said, referring to TikTok, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
Here’s what state universities told their constituents about the change:
Florida International University
“Protecting you and the University against cyber threats is of utmost importance. Be mindful of the applications you use that may impact your personal and confidential information,” FIU’s Division of Information Technology emailed to its students on Wednesday.
University of Florida
“The university strongly recommends that everyone discontinue the use of these prohibited technologies and remove the apps from their personal devices,” UF said in a statement. “Taking this action will help protect your personal information as well as university data.”
“The university treats the protection of UF data — academic records, research, financial information, and other sensitive, personally identifying information — as an institutional priority.”
Florida State University
“Florida State University is committed to protecting our community against potential cyber threats. This includes putting safety measures in place to protect our faculty, staff and students’ personal data against any potential threats,” FSU said in a statement.
“These applications are identified to bring unnecessary risk due to their connection with the foreign governments and are known to collect user’s biometric data such as faceprints and voiceprints from the user’s content.”
This story was originally published April 5, 2023 at 7:25 PM.
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