(Ottawa) Already banned for the public service in Ottawa and Quebec, the TikTok application can no longer be installed on devices managed by the House of Commons as of Friday.
Parliamentary users received a message on Monday in which they were informed that as of Friday March 3 at 9 p.m., the TikTok application will no longer be able to be installed on devices managed by the House of Commons, Amélie Crosson reported , from the office of House Speaker Anthony Rota.
From that moment, “it will be impossible to access parliamentary infrastructure or internal digital services from any device on which the application is still installed”, she added in an email sent to The Press.
The federal government announced on Monday that Chinese giant ByteDance’s popular video-sharing app should be removed from public service mobile devices because of the “unacceptable” security risk it poses.
The Conservative Party did not wait to act. “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.
Pierre Poilievre’s account has been deactivated.
That of the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, has also disappeared.
As of this writing on Tuesday, the account of NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, an avid user of the platform, was still active.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not have a TikTok account.
The application also prohibited in Quebec
The Quebec government imitated the federal government a few hours later on Monday, banning the installation and use of TikTok for its civil servants. The measure was decreed by the Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital, Éric Caire, and takes effect from this Tuesday.
“This is a preventive ban. There is no evidence to show that a foreign country would spy on government employees using this application,” said a press release from Minister Cairo’s office.
A personal choice
In both Ottawa and Quebec, no guidelines have been issued for private users. Canadian citizens should be free to “make their own choices”, but this “meaningful first step” may encourage them to “think about their own safety”, said Justin Trudeau on Monday.
For its part, TikTok reacted by saying that it was “curious” to see Ottawa blocking its application “without citing any specific security problem, without contacting us to ask questions, and soon after the introduction of similar bans by the European Union and the United States”.
-With Vincent Larin, The Press