TikTok ban on Australian government devices should also cover WeChat, parliamentary committee recommends

The Senate committee says the government should also extend the TikTok ban to all contractors who have access to Australian government data. Photograph: Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

The ban on TikTok from government devices in Australia should be extended to the devices of government contractors, and should also cover WeChat, a parliamentary committee has recommended.

The Senate committee examining foreign interference on social media said in its report tabled on Tuesday that it had been “particularly concerned” with the “unique national security risks” posed by companies like TikTok and WeChat “whose parent companies ByteDance and Tencent respectively, are irrefutably headquartered in and run from authoritarian countries like China”.