Amazon claims mail sent to the employees to delete Tik Tok was sent in error

Earlier on Friday, Amazon had sent mail to its employees ordering them to delete Tik Tok app from their mobile phones citing security reasons. An Amazon spokesperson told on Friday that the email was “sent in error.”

Amazon says that it will not ask employees to remove popular social video-sharing app TikTok from their mobile devices, despite sending an email calling for workers to delete the app earlier on Friday.

“If you have TikTok on your device, you must remove it by 10-Jul to retain mobile access to Amazon email. At this time, using TikTok from your Amazon laptop browser is allowed.” The email was obtained and independently published by multiple reporters on Twitter.

“This morning’s email to some of our employees was sent in error,” confessed the Amazon spokesperson. “There is no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok.”

“Due to security risks, the TikTok app is no longer permitted on mobile devices that access Amazon email,” the company said in the initial email to employees on Friday morning.

TikTok was recently caught accessing user clipboard data when running in the background, potentially exposing passwords or other sensitive data. The behaviour was revealed because of a new feature in iOS 14, and it’s unclear how long it had been present in the app. TikTok has since removed the feature, but the privacy scare underscored long-standing privacy concerns over the app, which is owned by China-based ByteDance.

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News that the Trump administration is “looking at” banning TikTok. It’s not entirely clear how the administration could go about banning the app, and it has yet to act on Pompeo’s statement.

Still, the confusion and recent glitches have thrown the TikTok community into a state of confusion worrying about whether the app will be removed in the US.

A TikTok spokesperson responded to Amazon’s decision to order employees to remove the app, saying in a statement- “While Amazon did not communicate to us before sending their email, and we still do not understand their concerns, we welcome a dialogue so we can address any issues they may have and enable their team to continue participating in our community.”