Canadian Government Bans TikTok Across Government Devices

Canada's Treasury Board has announced that TikTok is banned from government-issued mobile devices, which will take effect on Tuesday, Feb.28, according to TechCrunch.

The ban is because TikTok poses an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security. No evidence has been found yet that government data has been compromised, but the government is already taking precautionary measures.

Concerns about the legal regime in mobile data collection arise, in which how the social platform gathers data provides them with significant access to phone content.

What TikTok Has to Say

TikTok claims that the Canadian government did not talk about app concerns and has not cited specific security concerns. The ban follows similar bans in the EU and US.

The social media platform expresses its willingness to discuss how they protect the privacy and security of Canadians.

In December 2022, the US banned using TikTok on all government devices. Other state governments implemented the restrictions as well. In some situations, the bans are also implemented on state-funded college campuses. The University of Texas, and Auburn University, among others, are the campuses that don't allow the use of TikTok on campus WiFi or school-owned devices.

What's the Deal With TikTok?

Government bodies are concerned that the Chinese government could use the social platform, owned by ByteDance, a Chinese tech giant, to gather sensitive information from political officials.

TikTok has repeatedly assured American consumers that their data was stored in the US. However, an investigation in 2022 revealed that Chinese engineers had access to American TikTok data as recently as January 2022.

In response, TikTok said it would move US users' data to Oracle servers. An investigation also found that a small group of engineers had accessed two US journalists' data inappropriately with plans to use their location data to determine if they crossed paths with any ByteDance employees who may have leaked information to the reporters.

Tensions Arise

Canada's move to ban the use of TikTok across government devices puts a strain on Sino-Canadian relations. Recently, Ottawa accused China tried to influence its elections and has been running air and maritime surveillance activities.

Beijing denies the allegations and urged Ottawa to stop unwarranted speculation and smearing. Ottawa has also excluded Chinese firms from Canada's important minerals and telecommunication sectors, citing risks to its national security.

In November 2022, it ordered three Chinese companies to divest their investments in critical Canadian minerals and, before that, banned the use of 5G gear by Huawei Technologies.

In the previous week, Canada's federal and three provincial privacy regulators said they were investigating TikTok over concerns about how the platform collects personal information.