Australia announced on Tuesday that it would ban members of its government from using the Chinese app TikTok on their work devices, joining a series of similar rulings in Western countries over security fears.
This decision was taken on the advice of Australian intelligence services, and will be put into practice “as soon as possible”, said Minister of Justice Mark Dreyfus.
Australia is the latest country in the so-called Five Eyes alliance to ban members of its government from TikTok, following the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.
Similar measures have been taken in France, the Netherlands and within the European Commission.
Mr Dreyfus said waivers could be granted on a “case-by-case basis” and subject to “appropriate security measures”.
Studies have estimated that seven million Australians use the app, around a quarter of the population.
In a security advisory on the ban, the Justice Department says TikTok poses “significant security and privacy risks” due to “massive collection of user data.”
“Xenophobia”
For Fergus Ryan, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), this measure is “obvious”.
“It’s been clear for years that TikTok users’ personal data is accessible in China,” he told Reuters.France Media Agency.
Mr Ryan added that Beijing “will likely perceive this as unfair treatment and discrimination against a Chinese company”.
China actually reacted on Tuesday, announcing that it had officially protested to the Australian authorities.
“We call on the Australian side to sincerely abide by the rules of market economy and the principles of fair competition, and provide Chinese enterprises with a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory business environment,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson. speech of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during a regular press conference.
At the center of fears is a 2017 Chinese law that requires local companies to hand over personal data that would be relevant to national security upon request from the authorities.
Beijing maintains that this law poses no threat to ordinary users.
The Chinese government “has never asked or will ask any company or individual to collect or [lui] hand over data from abroad in a way that would violate local laws,” Mao Ning said in March.
TikTok claims that these bans are “rooted in xenophobia”, and assures that it does not belong to or depend on the Chinese state.
The company’s Australian spokesman, Lee Hunter, said TikTok would “never” hand over data to the Chinese government.
“Nobody is working harder to make sure this is never possible,” he told Australian channel Channel Seven.
Earlier this year, the Australian government also announced that it would remove Chinese-made CCTV cameras from politicians’ offices, also for security reasons.
12.7 million pounds fine in the UK
The social network was also fined on Tuesday 12.7 million pounds (more than 21 million $CA) by the British digital regulator, the ICO, for “illegal” use of personal data of children, children. ‘after a statement.
The ICO estimates in particular that TikTok allowed up to 1.4 million children under the age of 13 in the United Kingdom to open an account on its platform in 2020, contrary to its official rules, and also points to a use of their data without parental consent.
The ICO investigation found that TikTok failed to conduct “adequate checks to identify and cancel accounts of children” under the age to use its platform, even as some executives did. raise internal concerns about this, details the press release.
“There are laws in place in the UK to make sure our children are safe in the digital world” and “TikTok has not respected them”, commented John Edwards, British information commissioner, quoted in the press release.
The White House, the European Commission, the Canadian, British and Australian governments have recently banned their officials from using TikTok on their work phones. The Norwegian Parliament did the same last week as well as the Swedish army.
The United States notably accuses TikTok, a subsidiary of the Chinese ByteDance, of serving as a tool for Beijing to spy on and manipulate Americans.