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Australia is expected to ‘BAN TikTok on all government devices’ fearing the platform is being used by China to spy on the West
- Australia set to ban TikTok from government devices
- US, UK and New Zealand already have such a ban
- Fears app is used by China to harvest users’ data
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Australia is set to ban popular video sharing platform TikTok from all government devices over fears the popular Chinese app is used by Beijing to spy on users.
The move would follow similar bans in the US, UK and New Zealand on government-issued devices, with a number of Australia government departments already instructing staff not to download TikTok on work devices.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil is expected to announce the ban after receiving a security report into TikTok that she instigated last year amid heightened concerns the app was harvesting sensitive user data and sending it back to China.
It is expected Ms O’Neil will advise politicians to delete TikTik from their personal devices, although how far this advice will apply more widely to the ranks of government is unclear.
States and territories are waiting for a lead from the Commonwealth to decide their policies on the controversial platform, according to a report in The Australian.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has received a security review she ordered into TikTok over spying fears
Chinese owned video-sharing app TikTok could be banned on all Australian government devices over fears it can be used to spy by Beijing
Owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, TikTok has around a billion active users worldwide but has faced accusations it pushes pro-Beijing propaganda.
Australian online security firm Internet 2.0 last July reported it had cracked the source code for the app, which has been downloaded by more than 7.5million Aussies.
Internet 2.0 CEO Robert Potter accused ByteDance of hiding the unusually high amount of trackers in the source code and how much of the data being captured was sent back to China.
‘Their source code is at odds with their public statements about how their app functions,’ he told the Nine network.
Mr Potter said the Beijing-backed app taps into smartphone calendars, contacts list and scans the device’s ID and hard drive to monitor all other apps that have been installed.
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TikTok also checks the device’s location at least once an hour and will persist in seeking data from contacts even if permission is denied, according to the report.
Mr Potter said his team had identified that on Apple smartphones the app was connecting with servers in China and they could not say what information was being sent.
‘There was significant amounts of traffic flows to servers in China,’ he said.
These figure released by Australian online security company Internet 2.0 show how the most popular social media and messaging platforms stacked up according to how much personal data they were able to take from users
In response TikTok claimed all user data for the region is hosted in Singapore and only accessed by a small number of people who need it to maintain the site.
‘The IP address is in Singapore, the network traffic does not leave the region and it is categorically untrue to imply there is communication with China,’ the company said in a statement.
TikTok also said the information it gathers is in line with standard industry practices and is securely encrypted.
Mr Potter pointed out that as the company was based in China it is governed by Chinese laws and would be forced to hand over any data requested by the Communist Party.
‘Because it is domiciled and is a Chinese company its governed by Chinese law first, which means it operates in a very different privacy culture,’ he said.
Under Chinese law organisations and individuals are required to ‘support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work’.
TikTok has stated its employees would never share information with the Chinese government and have never been asked to.
China is a world leader in data collection, AI and facial recognition software.
The US Senate has been conducting hearings into TikTok and has heard the sobering news that one third of Americans rely on it for their daily dose of news.
The US Congress is considering a bill that give the federal government broader powers to regulate and ban foreign-linked technology, such as TikTok, that is considered a threat to national security.
