Bans Mount for TikTok as Canada, European Commission Bar App on Govt Devices

The Canadian government followed the footsteps of the European Commission earlier this week and imposed a full ban on TikTok from all its phones and other devices. The Canadian government cited concerns regarding data protection as a reason for the ban.

The ban is effective Tuesday onwards and it was announced after the Canadian government’s chief information officer deemed that the app presents “an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security”.

“The TikTok application will be removed from government-issued mobile devices. Users of these devices will also be blocked from downloading the application in the future,” the Canadian government said in a statement.

TikTok, owned by Chinese tech major ByteDance, continues to face intense scrutiny from Western nations. Before this week’s bans, imposed by Canada and the European Commission, several states in the US and the Biden administration also barred government employees – for both state-level and federal departments – from using and downloading TikTok on devices owned by the government.

The Canadian government did not cite any evidence of breaches of government data linked to the app but said the app’s data collection methods “provide considerable access to the contents of the phone”.

A spokesperson for the app said the decision to block TikTok was “curious” and it was taken “without citing any specific security concern” and “without consultation with the company”.

The decision also comes as bilateral relations between China and Canada continue to deteriorate. Relations soured when Canada arrested Huawei tech executive Meng Wanzhou in 2018 and China retaliated by detaining Canadian nationals Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, with both parties in respective nations accusing those arrested of espionage.

The main EU governing institutions also banned installing TikTok on work devices amid concerns over data protection. Now, the staff at the European Commission and European Council, which represents member states, will not be able to use and install TikTok on their work devices.

The new rules mean staff cannot use the video-sharing app on work devices and personal devices, such as phones, that have official EU email and communication apps installed, news agency AFP said.

All staff have been asked to comply with the directive and remove the app as soon as possible and should do so by March 15.

EU spokeswoman Sonya Gospodinova said the corporate management board of the Commission, the EU’s executive arm, made the decision citing security reasons.

Meanwhile, in the US, the Biden administration has given those employed in federal agencies 30 days time to purge Chinese-owned video-snippet sharing app TikTok from all government-issued devices.

Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young issued a memorandum directing government agencies to “remove and disallow installations” of the application on agency-owned or operated IT devices, and to “prohibit internet traffic” from such devices to the app within 30 days, news agency AFP said in a report.

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