The Australian government is looking to the nation’s top security agencies to determine if any actions should be taken against popular social media app TikTok.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government and security agencies were aware of the White House’s actions, with a directive this week giving all US federal agencies 30 days to wipe the app off government devices.
Canada said on Monday it would also ban the app from all government-issued mobile devices, while the European Union’s executive branch said last week it had temporarily banned it from phones used by employees.
Ahead of Monday’s announcement of a US ban, more than half of the states and Congress had already banned TikTok from official government devices.
Questions have been raised about the Chinese-owned social media app’s surreptitious data collection methods.
Dr Chalmers said the government hadn’t yet been advised to take the same action as its US counterparts, but it would act on the recommendations of security agencies.
“We’ll take the advice of our national security agencies,” he told ABC TV.
“But the advice to us hasn’t yet changed.”
Australian cyber safety expert Susan McLean said Australia should be “looking at it very seriously as well”, given the concerns from the US and other governments.
“I think that if anyone actually knew the data that was being collated on them when they used it, how it was being used, and the fact that it can be fed back to the Chinese Communist Party, many people would simply walk away – but there is not a great understanding of that,” she told Nine’s Today on Wednesday.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020
The app faces intensifying scrutiny from Europe and North America over security and data privacy amid worries that it could be used to promote pro-Beijing views or sweep up users’ information.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil last year ordered her department to investigate how TikTok harvested data, following concerns China could access the personal information of Australians.
Ms O’Neil has asked national security agencies to provide options to tackle data collection by social media giants.
On Tuesday, China hit back at the US, saying it firmly opposed the looming ban.
“We firmly oppose those wrong actions,” spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
“The US government should respect the principles of market economy and fair competition, stop suppressing the companies and provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for foreign companies in the US.”
“How unsure of itself can the world’s top superpower like the US be to fear young people’s favourite app like that?
“The US has been over-stretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress foreign companies.”
Ms Mao said the US government should “respect the principles of market economy and fair competition … and provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for foreign companies”.
– with AAP
