Australia bans TikTok on government devices

Name: New Zealand joins US and UK to curb TikTok on government phones over security concerns
Uploaded: 2023-04-04T01:49:22.000Z
Duration: 1 min 30 s
Description: New Zealand joins US and UK to curb TikTok on government phones over security concerns

All members of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network have now banned the Chinese-owned app from government devices

‘We stress that there is no evidence to suggest that TikTok is in any way a security risk to Australians,’ the company’s Australia manager said

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TikTok has said that bans of the app by Western countries were “rooted in xenophobia”. Photo: AP

Reuters

Published: 9:49am, 4 Apr 2023Updated: 3:49pm, 4 Apr 2023

Australia said on Tuesday it would remove TikTok from all federal government-owned devices, following many other Western countries in barring the Chinese-owned video app over security concerns.

The ban underscores growing worries that China’s government could use the Beijing-based company, owned by ByteDance Ltd, to harvest users’ data to advance its political agenda, undermining Western security interests.

The ban will come into effect “as soon as practicable”, Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said in a statement, adding that exemptions would only be granted on a case-by-case basis and with appropriate security measures in place. China said in response that it had “lodged stern representations” with Australia over the ban.

With Australia’s ban, all members of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network – which consists of Australia, Canada, the United States, Britain and New Zealand – have banned the app from government devices. France, Belgium and the European Commission have announced similar bans.

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New Zealand joins US and UK to curb TikTok on government phones over security concerns

The Australian newspaper late on Monday reported that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had agreed to a governmentwide ban on the use of TikTok after the completion of a review by the Home Affairs Department.