February 27th 2023
Canada bans TikTok on government devices
by Mike Wendling/BBC
The decision follows a review by Canada's chief information officer, and the app "presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security", a government spokesperson said in a statement.
A TikTok spokesperson said the company was disappointed by the decision.
It comes just days after the European Commission announced a similar ban.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there was enough concern about security around the app to require the change.
"This may the first step, this may be the only step we need to take," he said on Monday at a press conference near Toronto.
TikTok has been criticised for its use of personal information and ties to the Chinese government.
The short-form video app is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd.
US federal employees were banned from using TikTok late last year and a number of American universities have also banned the app from being used on their networks. Broader public bans have been implemented in India and several other Asian countries.
The company insists that Chinese government officials don't have access to user data and that a Chinese version of the app is separate from the one used in the rest of the world. But last year, the company admitted some staff in China can access the data of European users.
The ban for European Commission employees is set to come into force on 15 March.
Canadian privacy regulators are also investigating TikTok over concerns about user data, in particular whether the company obtains "valid and meaningful" consent from users when collecting personal information.
About a quarter of Canadian adults use the app, according to a recent survey by researchers at the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University.
In a statement, Mona Fortier, the president of Canada's Treasury Board, said the government "is committed to keeping government information secure".
The app will be removed from government-issued phones this week and other devices and blocked from downloads in the future.
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