Australia, on Tuesday, April 4 declared it will ban TikTok on government devices, joining a growing list of Western nations cracking down on the Chinese-owned app due to national security fears.
Australia Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, said the decision followed advice from the country’s intelligence agencies and would begin “as soon as practicable”.
Australia is the last member of the secretive Five Eyes security alliance to pursue a government TikTok ban, joining its allies the United States, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand.
France, the Netherlands and the European Commission have made similar moves.
Dreyfus said the government would approve some exemptions on a “case-by-case basis” with “appropriate security mitigations in place”.
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Cybersecurity experts have warned that the app – which boasts more than one billion global users – could be used to hoover up data that is then shared with the Chinese government.
Surveys have estimated that as many as seven million Australians use the app – or about a quarter of the population.
In a security notice outlining the ban, the Attorney-General’s Department said TikTok posed “significant security and privacy risks” stemming from the “extensive collection of user data”.
China condemned the ban, saying it had “lodged stern representations” with Canberra over the move and urging Australia to “provide Chinese companies with a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory business environment”.
“China has always maintained that the issue of data security should not be used as a tool to generalise the concept of national security, abuse state power, and unreasonably suppress companies from other countries,” foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said.
Many government departments were initially eager to use TikTok as a way to connect with a younger demographic that is harder to reach through traditional media channels.
New Zealand banned TikTok from government devices in March, saying the risks were “not acceptable in the current New Zealand Parliamentary environment”.
Earlier this year, the Australian government announced it would be stripping Chinese-made CCTV cameras from politicians’ offices due to security concerns.
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