TikTok Banned By Australia On Govt Phones: Reports

TikTok Australia's general manager stated that the company had repeatedly offered to engage constructively with the government about the policy.

The move comes amid increasing scrutiny of TikTok.

According to multiple reports by Australian newspapers, the government is set to announce a ban on the use of TikTok on government phones this week. This follows the lead of other nations, such as the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Canada, Belgium, and the European Commission, who have already banned the video-sharing app due to security concerns.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has reportedly agreed to the ban following a review conducted by the Home Affairs department. In addition, Victoria state is expected to follow the federal government's guidance and also ban the app from government phones.

The move comes amid increasing scrutiny of TikTok due to fears that user data owned by its parent company, ByteDance, could potentially be accessed by the Chinese government, posing a risk to Western security interests.

TikTok Australia's general manager, Lee Hunter, expressed disappointment in the decision, stating that the company had repeatedly offered to engage constructively with the government about the policy.

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Hunter also stressed that there is no evidence to suggest that TikTok is any more of a security risk to Australians than other social media platforms. "We stress that there is no evidence to suggest that TikTok is in any way a security risk to Australians and should not be treated differently to other social media platforms," he was quoted by The Age as saying. 

 

TikTok last month responded to reports that the Joe Biden administration was urging its Chinese owners to divest their stakes in the social media platform, saying that such action would not be beneficial to national security. 

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was threatening to impose a ban on TikTok unless its Beijing-based owners, ByteDance, divested.