Ottawa and Quebec | Officials will have to say goodbye to TikTok

As of Tuesday, the social network application TikTok, developed in China, will be removed from mobile devices of the Government of Canada, announced Monday the President of the Treasury Board, Mona Fortier. The decision, quickly copied in Quebec, in the evening, puts the business world on its guard, which is watching what happens next.

“Following a review of TikTok, Canada’s Chief Information Officer has determined that this app poses an unacceptable level of privacy and security risk,” Minister Fortier said in a statement. Monday.

Users of these devices will also be prohibited from downloading the Chinese social network’s application in the future, she added, citing a decision taken “as a precautionary measure” by the Canadian government, which follows in the footsteps of some international allies by declaring this boycott.

The concern of Western governments vis-à-vis TikTok lies mainly in the fact that the very large amount of information collected by the platform – location, contact book, payment history, etc. – could be accessible in Beijing, recalls the professor at the department of computer science of the Vanier College Samad Rostanpour.

The company that owns TikTok, the giant ByteDance, is indeed established in China, where the laws in force oblige any private company to share with the Chinese government the data it claims, underlines the expert. Last September, a senior TikTok official told a US Senate hearing that the company does not store US data in China, which has not necessarily allayed many people’s fears.

Quebec follows

After Ottawa, the decision of Quebec was not long in coming: in the evening, the Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital, Éric Caire, announced that he would follow Ottawa’s lead by prohibiting the use of the popular social network TikTok on mobile devices of its officials.

“This is a ban of a preventive nature,” argued his cabinet, in a press release.

“Recall that to date, no evidence shows that a foreign country would spy on state employees through this application, or even that private or government data would have been stolen by foreign interests,” adds -we.

In early January, US President Joe Biden also ratified a law banning the popular video-sharing platform on the devices of civil servants, but also on those of elected officials in the House of Representatives and the Senate. On Monday, the Biden administration went one step further by ordering all federal agencies to ban TikTok from their devices within 30 days.

The European Commission also banned last Thursday the installation of the TikTok application on all the professional devices of its staff in order to protect the institution’s data, and this, by March 15 at the latest.

A “personal” choice, but not without danger

Joined Monday evening, the president and CEO of the Quebec Employers Council, Karl Blackburn, said he was monitoring the situation closely.

“What is happening is changing at breakneck speed. We offer our collaboration to bridge the gap between government and businesses, if ever the evolution of the situation requires it,” he limited himself to say.

Without going so far as to recommend that Canadian users also delete the application, speaking of a “personal choice”, Minister Fortier pointed out that “on a mobile device, TikTok’s data collection methods give considerable access to the phone content.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed the remarks on the sidelines of an announcement in the Greater Toronto Area on Monday afternoon, arguing that Canadians should be free to “make their own choices” and that this “first step meaningful” would possibly prompt them to “think about their own safety.

TikTok reacts

TikTok also reacted, saying it was “curious” to see Ottawa blocking its app “without citing any specific security concerns, without contacting us to ask questions, and soon after similar bans were introduced by the Union.” Europe and the United States.

“Targeting TikTok in this way does not achieve this goal [de protéger la vie privée et la sécurité des Canadiens], which we share. This measure only prevents public servants from reaching the public on a platform loved by millions of Canadians,” said a TikTok spokesperson.

The Conservative Party will follow the directive

In Ottawa, the policy decreed by Minister Fortier’s office, which oversees the federal public service, does not apply to elected officials and political staff.

It will be up to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, to decide. “The House Administration is reviewing its policy,” the Office of the Speaker said Monday.

However, the Conservative Party has already made its nest.

“We will work to extend this ban to parliamentary devices. The leader and all members of the Conservative caucus will suspend their TikTok accounts and work with all parties to ensure the protection of our Parliament,” said Sebastian Skamski, Director of Media Relations.

The other three parties are awaiting insight from the House of Commons Administration before moving, including the New Democratic Party, where leader Jagmeet Singh is a fan of the app – there are more than 878,000 subscribers.

Privacy Survey

Last week, a federal-provincial investigation was opened into the app to establish “whether the organization’s practices comply with Canadian privacy laws and, more specifically, whether TikTok has obtained consent valid for collection.

The investigation will be conducted jointly by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and its counterpart in Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta.

It will focus on the protection of young users, including to “determine whether the company has obtained valid consent from them for the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information” , the four organizations reported.

– With Agence France-Presse