Australia latest to ban TikTok on government phones
Australia has joined the growing list of Western nations limiting the use of TikTok among government employees over security.
Reuters
Australia has joined the growing list of Western nations limiting the use of TikTok among government employees over security concerns.
The democratic nation announced a ban of the Chinese-owned video app on its government phones Tuesday.
The announcement follows the completion of the government report, Review into Foreign Interference through Social Media Applications, carried out by the Home Affairs department.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese agreed to the government-wide ban after seeing the review.
The ban will come into effect "as soon as practicable," and exemptions would only be granted on a case-by-case basis, according to Australia's Attorney General.
TikTok said Australia's decision is being "driven by politics, not by fact."
Government officials from Victoria, one of Australia's six states, say they plan to follow federal guidance and will also ban TikTok from municipal devices, according to the Australian news outlet, The Age.
The general manager of Tiktok in Australia, Lee Hunter, said he was disappointed to learn of the ban through the media, according to The Age.
Hunter said Australia's TikTok had made “repeated offers to engage with government constructively about this policy."
"We stress that there is no evidence to suggest that TikTok is in any way a security risk to Australians and should not be treated differently to other social media platforms," said Hunter.
All members of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network -- Australia, the US, Britain, New Zealand, and Canada have now banned the app.
The ban comes on the same day Australian and Chinese officials are meeting in Beijing to discuss improving diplomatic trade relations. China is Australia's largest trading partner.
Relations between the two countries have been rocky since 2018 when Australia refused to allow Chinese tech companies to be involved in a nationwide 5G rollout -- and more recently after Australia's lawmakers called for an independent investigation over the origins of Covid-19.
Belgium, France, and the European Commission have also banned the app from government devices over national security concerns.
Western governments worry that TikTok’s Chinese owners, ByteDance, will be compelled by the Chinese government to share the massive amounts of private data it collects on its users.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew appeared before the U.S. Congress last month, to try and assure US lawmakers that his app has never shared data or is connected to the Chinese Communist Party.