Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, February 28, Ottawa will ban the installation of the TikTok social network on all government-issued cell phones. The information first revealed by the National Post was confirmed by Treasury Board on Monday.
“This app posed an unacceptable level of privacy and security risk,” Treasury Board President Mona Fortier said in a statement. TikTok users will thus see this app removed from their mobile device.
TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is Chinese-owned, regularly comes under suspicion from intelligence agencies who fear it could be used as spyware for Beijing. “TikTok’s data collection methods provide considerable access to phone content,” the statement from Ottawa supports in particular.
The use of TikTok is already banned in the United States for members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The European Commission did the same for its staff last week.
“As a precaution”
This ban is a decision taken “as a preventive measure”, according to the Canadian government. “We have no reason to believe at this time that any government information has been compromised. »
“It is curious that the Government of Canada has decided to block TikTok on government-provided devices without citing any specific security issue, without contacting us to ask questions,” TikTok Canada responded in writing through its door voice. -word Danielle Morgan. ” […] We are always available to meet with our government officials to discuss how we protect the privacy and security of Canadians. However, targeting TikTok in this way does not achieve this goal, which we share. This measure only prevents public servants from reaching the public on a platform enjoyed by millions of Canadians. »
TikTok was already in the crosshairs of the authorities. A joint federal-provincial privacy investigation is soon to examine whether the app complies with Canadian privacy laws.
More details will follow.
To see in video