Grant Shapps team say he doesn't have TikTok on his personal phone

Grant Shapps does not have TikTok on his personal phone, a source close to the defence secretary has said, amid security concerns over the video app.

Mr Shapps, a prolific TikTok user, was appointed defence secretary in a mini-cabinet reshuffle on Thursday.

Some MPs have urged Mr Shapps to quit the app over fears sensitive data could be accessed by the Chinese government.

TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, but has denied it is controlled by China's government.

The UK government banned ministers from using the app on their work phones on security grounds earlier this year, following a review of data collection by some platforms.

The ban did not cover personal phones, with some ministers and government departments, such as the Ministry of Defence, continuing to post videos on the platform frequently.

"Along with the Ministry of Defence, which maintains a long-standing official TikTok account, Grant knows that TikTok can be a valuable tool for communicating with his constituents," a source close to Mr Shapps said.

"Aware of security concerns, he doesn't have the app on his phone and the account is instead managed by his constituency staff."

The BBC has been told the TikTok account is managed by a staffer in Mr Shapps's parliamentary team, rather than his constituency office in Welwyn Hatfield.

When asked if Mr Shapps had ever had access to TikTok on his personal phone, the Ministry of Defence did not reply.

With almost 15,000 followers on TikTok, Mr Shapps has been using the platform since December 2021 and posted a video of his trip to Ukraine as recently as two days ago.

When the government banned the app on official devices in March, he reacted by posting a clip from the film, Wolf Of Wall Street, in which Leonardo DiCaprio, playing a New York stockbroker, declares: "The show goes on".

Mr Shapps called the ban "sensible", but added: "I've never used TikTok on government devices and can hereby confirm I will NOT be leaving TikTok anytime soon!"

But China sceptics in Parliament are uncomfortable with senior ministers using the app at all, even if it is not on their work phones.

Tim Loughton - one of five Conservative MPs sanctioned by China - told the BBC: "You can not de-link personal and ministerial TikTok accounts when you are in such a high-profile government position. It is not sustainable."

When asked if there was still a risk of sensitive data ending up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, Mr Loughton said: "Of course."

A Labour source said that given the Ministry of Defence had already banned TikTok on government phones, the new defence secretary "must now follow the rules of his own department and put our national security ahead of his own self promotion".

Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter Parliamentary Alliance on China, said there were "clear security and data transfer concerns with this app".

"It does not inspire confidence that the person charged with defending the UK against foreign threats is failing to set an example," Mr de Pulford said.

Parliament closed down its TikTok account last year after politicians raised concerns about the risk of data being passed to the Chinese government.

Peers and MPs - including former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith - flagged those concerns in a letter to the speakers of both Houses of Parliament.

TikTok executives were "unable to reassure MPs that the company could prevent data transfer to ByteDance, should the parent company make a request for it", the letter said.

TikTok has strongly rejected what it called "baseless" claims, saying it has strict data security measures in place and has never shared data with the Chinese government.

But governments fear that TikTok may have no choice under a 2017 law that compels companies to turn over any personal data relevant to China's national security.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had been under pressure from senior MPs to follow the US and the European Union in barring the video-sharing app from official government devices.

But government departments - and individual ministers - have embraced TikTok as a way of getting their message out to younger people.

The app has become immensely popular in recent years, racking up more than 3.5 billion downloads globally.