Canada has joined the United States in banning TikTok on government-issued devices as concern about its potential to compromise national security heightens.
The ban, which will take effect today, was announced by the country’s Treasury Board on Monday.
TikTok has been facing growing apathy from Western governments; fueled by concern that the Chinese-owned social media app could be used as a backdoor for espionage by Beijing.
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“The decision to remove and block TikTok from government mobile devices is being taken as a precaution, particularly given concerns about the legal regime that governs the information collected from mobile devices, and is in line with the approach of our international partners,” said Treasury Board President Mona Fortier in a statement. “On a mobile device, TikTok’s data collection methods provide considerable access to the contents of the phone.”
Last week, the EU Commission asked employees to uninstall the app no later than March 15. Canada’s move to block TikTok came at the same time, after the country’s four privacy regulators announced that they would jointly investigate the short-form video app.
The apathy toward TikTok emanates from its ownership by ByteDance, a Beijing-based company. Under the Chinese Communist Party, every company is subject to the rule which makes releasing information to the authorities at request compulsory. That fuels concern that TikTok’s users’ data could be compromised on the orders from Beijing.
The Chief Information Officer of Canada had earlier determined that TikTok poses “an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.”
In response to the ban, TikTok said the Canadian government did not reach out to discuss concerns about the app, even though the company is open to discuss security concerns with the authorities.
“It’s curious that the Government of Canada has moved to block TikTok on government-issued devices — without citing any specific security concern or contacting us with questions — only after similar bans were introduced in the EU and the US,” a TikTok spokesperson said in an email to TechCrunch. “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.”
Just like the others, Canadian officials haven’t found any evidence that government data has been compromised, so their decision to ban TikTok on government-issued devices is precautionary.
TikTok has tried to calm the nerves of the authorities, moving its data centers far away from China in collaboration with some US companies that include Oracle.
“We know we’re among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint, and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of U.S. user data,” TikTok spokeswoman Maureen Shanahan said last year. “That’s why we hire experts in their fields, continually work to validate our security standards, and bring in reputable, independent third parties to test our defenses.”
However, these efforts have failed to cut it for the embattled company. Late last year, the FBI director Chris Wray warned that TikTok poses a national security threat to the United States as the app could be exploited for espionage by the Chinese government. This warning amplified the apathy toward TikTok, igniting a fresh wave of legislations and directives blocking the app across states in the US.
Washington and Congress have also enacted rules prohibiting the use of TikTok on government-issued devices. The bans have spiraled down to some universities in the US. Some state-funded college campuses like the University of Texas, Auburn University and the University of Oklahoma have caught the wave, prohibiting the use of TikTok on campus wi-fi or school-owned devices.
The ban wave received a boost last year following an investigative report by BuzzFeed that some TikTok employees in China accessed the data of American users. Another investigative report by Forbes found that a small group of engineers inappropriately accessed two U.S. journalists’ data.