Ottawa: Canada on Monday announced a ban on Chinese-owned social media app TikTok from government-issued devices, saying it presents an “unacceptable” level of risk to privacy and security, adding to the growing rift between the two countries. Effective Tuesday, “the TikTok application will be removed from government-issued mobile devices. Users of these devices will also be blocked from downloading the application in the future,” the government said in a statement.
TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is Chinese, has faced increasing Western scrutiny in recent months over fears about how much access Beijing has to user data.
It added that Canada’s chief information officer had “determined that it presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.”
Although there’s been no evidence of breaches of government data linked to the app, it warned that “TikTok’s data collection methods provide considerable access to the contents of the phone.”
Trudeau cites Security concerns
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there was enough concern about security around the app to require the change. “This may the first step, this may be the only step we need to take,” he said on Monday at a press conference near Toronto.
US federal employees were banned from using TikTok late last year, and on Monday the White House gave government agencies 30 days to scrub the app from their systems.
Canadian privacy regulators are also investigating TikTok over concerns about user data, in particular whether the company obtains “valid and meaningful” consent from users when collecting personal information.
In a statement, Mona Fortier, the president of Canada’s Treasury Board, said the government “is committed to keeping government information secure”.
“On a mobile device, TikTok’s data collection methods provide considerable access to the contents of the phone,” Fortier said. “While the risks of using this application are clear, we have no evidence at this point that government information has been compromised.”
The Treasury Board, which oversees the operations of the federal government, includes the country’s chief information officer.
TikTok responds
In a statement, a company spokesperson said the ban on government-issued devices happened “without citing any specific security concerns about TikTok or contacting us to discuss any concern prior to making this decision”.
“We are always available to meet with our government officials to discuss how we protect the privacy and security of Canadians, but singling out TikTok in this way does nothing to achieve that shared goal,” the spokesperson said.
“All it does is prevent officials from reaching the public on a platform loved by millions of Canadians.”
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