One of the most popular Australian politicians on TikTok says he refuses to use the Chinese-owned video app on his government or personal phones due to concerns about the security of his data.
"I've never had TikTok on my government phone," federal Labor MP Julian Hill told 7.30.
"It's on a second phone, the red phone we call it, which I use for a wide range of community outreach activities. But it's always been separated from anything that can be remotely sensitive."
The Victorian backbencher, who sits on parliament's national security and intelligence committee, has 147,000 followers and 2.3 million likes on TikTok – the world's most downloaded app.
"It's a dilemma because I've always been conscious, from day one, of the cybersecurity data harvesting concern," he said.
Mr Hill mainly posts clips of speeches from parliament stamped with emojis and says he's received enormous positive feedback.
"And strangely not just from young people themselves," he said. "I've had many emails from their parents saying thank you for helping get my young person engaged in the political process and engaged in issues."
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance, has been dogged by criticisms that it collects too much user data, which it could be obligated to hand over to the Chinese Communist Party.
Australia's Department of Parliamentary Services this month released a memo mentioning TikTok by name, warning parliamentarians to be careful about apps and consider their country of origin.
Last year, Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil announced a review into the data and privacy risks posed by a range of social media platforms, including TikTok, which is due to be completed soon.
"We've got this pretty serious problem that's facing us here where we've got technology that's being used by Australians that's owned by companies that are located in authoritarian countries," Ms O'Neil said in September.
Push to ban TikTok for government employees
In the United States, TikTok is attempting to reach a national security deal to continue operating. In December, it was hit by the announcement of a ban on government employees using the app.
"I think we are starting to see more and more a bipartisan call to ban TikTok and if I were TikTok, I would be pretty alarmed about that," Forbes journalist Emily Baker-White said.
Ms Baker-White broke a series of stories last year about Project Texas, TikTok's massive effort to further separate its systems from those of ByteDance – and allay the concerns of US politicians.
But Ms Baker-White then discovered her data had been improperly accessed by members of a ByteDance team, which had tracked her to see if she was meeting TikTok employees.
"A group of people tried to use my IP address to figure out where I was physically," Ms Baker-White said.
"If it was a couple of bad actors, it was also a couple of bad actors following orders from their bosses."
ByteDance and TikTok investigated the data misuse and confirmed journalists had been tracked. Four staff were fired.
James Paterson, the Coalition's cyber security spokesperson, says he was "deeply disturbed" to learn of journalists being tracked.
He is calling for Australia to adopt a similar stance to that of the United States, banning the app for all government employees except those who must use TikTok and can use it safely.
"It's my view that we've now moved beyond just simple assurances and promises from that company [TikTok]," he said.
"We now need regulatory or legislative action to really substantially protect Australians."
TikTok says it hasn't shared Australian user data with Chinese government
TikTok declined 7.30's request for an interview.
In a statement, it said it collected less data than many other apps and that access to Australian user data was overseen by a US-led security team.
"We have never shared Australian user data with the Chinese government, nor would we if asked," the company said.
"As a rule, our security teams want to minimise the number of people who have access to data and limit it only to people who need that access in order to do their jobs."
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