The Australian government will ban video content app TikTok from being installed on government devices, following similar moves by many other western countries recently, amid fears of compromised security and foreign interference by the app’s owners, Chinese company ByteDance.
Attorney-general Mark Dreyfus announced today (April 4) that he had authorised his department’s secretary to issue a mandatory direction prohibiting TikTok on devices issued by commonwealth departments and agencies. Dreyfus said the ban was based on “advice from intelligence and security agencies”, and would come into into effect “as soon as practicable”. Exemptions will be granted on a case-by-case basis.
The protective security policy directive issued today from the Attorney-General’s Department says TikTok “poses significant security and privacy risks to non-corporate Commonwealth entities arising from extensive collection of user data and exposure to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government that conflict with Australian law”.
TikTok has long denied its app poses a national cybersecurity risk. TikTok Australia’s general manager, Lee Hunter, said the company’s Australian branch was not advised by the government about the ban prior to its announcement, and that they were “extremely disappointed” by the decision.
“In our view, this is driven by politics and not by fact,” Hunter said in a statement. “We’re also disappointed with the fact that TikTok and the millions of Australians who use it every day will find out about this decision through the media, despite repeated efforts from our end.
“Again, we stress that there is no evidence to suggest that TikTok is in any way a security risk to Australians,” he added. “Our millions of Australian users deserve a government which makes decisions based upon facts and who treats all businesses fairly, regardless of country of origin.”
In recent months, several nations moved to block the app, following revelations TikTok staff based in the US and China used the app to spy on American journalists who were writing stories critical of the app, in an attempt to identify their sources. US President Joe Biden has demanded TikTok’s parent company ByteDance divest from the app or else face a potential nationwide ban in the US.
Australia joins a long list of countries who have banned TikTok from government-issued devices in recent months. The Canadian government banned TikTok from government-issued mobile devices in February. The same month, the European Commission and European Council banned the app from official devices.
March saw the UK government ban TikTok on electronic devices used by ministers and other employees. Belgium, Denmark and New Zealand governments also banned TikTok on work devices.
In the US, TikTok is banned on all federal government devices, after the No TikTok on Government Devices Act was signed into law in late 2022 by President Biden. More than half of the country’s state governments have also banned the use of the app on government-issued devices.
In March, the Department of Justice and FBI reportedly launched an investigation into TikTok, after the company confirmed in December that employees of parent company ByteDance accessed journalists’ data in an attempt to identify their sources. The company confirmed that data was used to track the physical movements of the reporters, and that the employees in question were fired.
The same month, the Biden administration demanded ByteDance divest from their ownership of TikTok, warning the parent company the app could face a nationwide ban in the United States otherwise. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified in front of US Congress in Washington late last month, rebutting concerns over handling of users’ data and ties to China.