Australia announced on Tuesday that it will ban members of the government from using the Chinese application TikTok on their business devices, joining a number of Western countries that have made similar decisions for security reasons.
The decision was made on the advice of Australian intelligence and will be implemented “as soon as possible”, Australian Justice Minister Mark Dreyfus said.
Australia is the latest country in the so-called “Five Eyes” alliance to ban TikTok in governmentafter the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.
Similar measures have been taken in France, the Netherlands and the European Commission.
At the center of the concerns is a 2017 Chinese law requiring local businesses to hand over personal data purportedly related to security at the request of authorities.
Initially, TikTok said the bans were “rooted in xenophobia,” before admitting to collecting personal data to spy on journalists last December.
The popularity of the video sharing app has exploded in recent years, especially among young people. Many Australian government departments had previously tried to expand their presence on the app to reach a younger audience.
Tiktok is owned by the Chinese group ByteDance, which has a similar but separate app for China.
Earlier this year, the Australian government also announced it would be removing Chinese CCTV surveillance cameras from politicians’ offices, also for security reasons.
Source: DN
