GENEVA

The French government has decided to ban the installation and use of "recreational" applications on the work phones of its 2.5 million public sector employees, the Public Service Ministry announced on Friday.

This decision concerns in particular TikTok, Twitter and Instagram, according to Franceinfo news channel.

Although no "fixed and definitive" list of applications has been decided, as unnamed staff of the minister Stanislas Guerini told the news channel, three major categories are affected. They are "leisure," "gaming" and "streaming" applications.

France is following several Western institutions and governments that have already banned or restricted the use of Chinese social network TikTok on work devices.

The applications affected by the ban "do not have sufficient levels of cybersecurity and data protection," the ministry said in a statement. According to the ministry, they "may pose a risk to the privacy of these administrations and their public employees."

In response to the ban, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Friday that the Chinese government "has never asked or will ask any company or individual to collect or hand over data from abroad in a way that violates local laws."