March 6, 2023
Chinese-owned viral video app TikTok has been banned from work-issued devices by 25 federal agencies and departments, including Foreign Affairs and Trade, Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Finance, as an investigation by Home Affairs into social media and what action the government should take nears completion.
An audit of all federal government departments and agencies by Liberal senator James Paterson through Senate questions on notice revealed the 25 departments and agencies banning TikTok on work-issued devices and a partial ban in 12. A further 11 permitted the app while five agencies did not respond or failed to answer directly.
Senator Paterson said the audit had “revealed a haphazard and inconsistent approach to banning the social media app TikTok from government-issued devices”.
“The risks posed by this app have been apparent for some time, particularly since their July 2022 admission about user data, and the revelations in December that employees of TikTok in China used the app to spy on journalists writing critical articles about the company and lied about doing so,” he said.
In response to a series of questions from The Australian Financial Review, TikTok said: “Just like many private sector organisations, Commonwealth government agencies have policies that may restrict the use of social media and messaging apps on devices. In the case of these departments, we understand the restrictions apply to a range of apps and software, not just TikTok.”
Canada last week announced it would bar all government employees from using TikTok on government-issued devices. Days earlier, the European Commission banned its staff from using the app. In December, the US Senate passed legislation banning TikTok from all US government devices.
TikTok chief operating officer Vanessa Pappas last week criticised US politicians who have been calling for the app to be banned altogether.
“Should there be national legislation? The answer is yes, but it should not be held to companies based on where they’re located,” Ms Pappas said during the Upfront Summit in Los Angeles. “It has to be an industry-wide conversation and not predicated on some xenophobia that we’re seeing.”
The Financial Review reported in 2021 that Home Affairs and Defence had already banned TikTok on department-issued mobile phones. Defence also banned Chinese-owned social media and messaging app WeChat in 2018.
“The risks associated with that application and the information that that application drew down, from both the device and the users’ interaction with that device, was seen as too high for us to allow its existence on departmental devices,” Department of Home Affairs deputy secretary Marc Ablong told Senate estimates in November.
Governments are concerned about data collection by US and Chinese social media companies. The Western intelligence community is particularly concerned about TikTok, links between its parent company ByteDance and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and China’s wide-reaching National Intelligence Law.
TikTok denies any data can be accessed by the CCP and says it has robust security protocols over who can access it.
China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires organisations and citizens to “support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work”. The legislation was a major consideration for the government’s 2018 ban on Chinese telecommunications companies, including Huawei and ZTE, from providing equipment in the rollout of 5G mobile phone networks.
TikTok Australia is owned by TikTok Ltd, which is registered in the Cayman Islands. TikTok Ltd is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese multinational company based in Beijing and domiciled in the Cayman Islands.
In July 2022, TikTok admitted in a letter to Senator Paterson that TikTok employees around the world, including in China, can access certain data of millions of Australian users. At the time, TikTok maintained it had “strict protocols in place to protect Australian user data”.
“The Albanese government must now finally act. TikTok should be banned on all federal government devices unless exceptional circumstances exist,” Senator Paterson, who is chairing the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference Through Social Media, said on Sunday.
TikTok, in its submission to the Senate committee, said the app should not be used as a “political football”.
“As we embrace the opportunity to contribute to these discussions, we note as well that much has been made of our company’s Chinese heritage. We are proud of our heritage, and it’s important to note that we operate no differently to other global companies and claims to the contrary are unsubstantiated by evidence,” TikTok said.
“As this submission details, and as even a cursory search of our platform for politically contentious subject matter will reveal, we do not moderate content on TikTok based on the political sensitivities of any government, including China’s. For example, our users can readily find content on our app which contradicts the official Chinese government position on contemporary events, including the recent shooting down of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over the United States.”
A spokesman for Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said: “The Minister for Home Affairs is conducting a review of all social media platforms and she will consider the recommendations of that review once it is finalised.”
Home Affairs is due to hand the minister advice in the current quarter. Ms O’Neil has ruled out completely banning TikTok.
In December, US publication Forbes revealed ByteDance tracked a number of its journalists in an attempt to find sources for a series of stories exposing TikTok’s links to China. TikTok initially denied the first reports by Forbes in October, claiming it could not monitor US users the way the media outlet suggested, using IP addresses via the TikTok app. It also attacked the reporting in tweets stating it lacked “both rigour and journalistic integrity”. However, ByteDance now acknowledges its previous claims were false.
“I have been calling on the government to act to protect Australians since July 2022 when TikTok admitted to me in correspondence that our user data is accessible in China and therefore subject to the Chinese government’s national intelligence laws. I shared that correspondence with the Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security immediately,” Senator Paterson said.
“In the eight months since, all the government has done is seek advice about the risks posed by the app. Since then, our closest security partners and like-minded jurisdictions including the United States, Canada, Denmark and the European Union have banned the app from government devices. Australia could have led the world like we did banning Huawei from our 5G network in 2018, but we are now falling dangerously behind.”
The Financial Review last month revealed that members of parliament, senators and their staff were warned about installing apps “such as TikTok” on parliamentary and personal devices by the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS).
“Privacy settings on apps can be overly permissive or may contain security vulnerabilities that can allow access to information on your device,” the DPS email said.
“Consider the country of origin in which the app development company is located, including the government use of data in those countries.”
The email also urged the consideration of the terms and conditions of apps that may describe how data can be used or sent to third parties or government agencies.
In July, the Financial Review first reported on analysis by Canberra-based cybersecurity and intelligence firm Internet 2.0 that revealed TikTok checks its users’ device location at least once an hour; continuously requests access to contacts even if the user originally denies; maps a device’s running apps and all installed apps; and more as part of broad permissions asked of users.
Facebook has faced intense scrutiny in recent years over its excessive data collection, privacy breaches and nefarious uses of the data it collects from users by third-party platforms. Facebook Messenger was singled out by OpenDemocracy for its excessive data collection, which included name, email, location, user ID, iMessage, photos and videos, health and fitness, and more.
UK-based consulting firm Cambridge Analytica infamously used data from Facebook for political profiling ahead of the 2016 US presidential election. In early 2020, the Australian information commissioner and privacy commissioner began court action against Facebook over potential breaches of privacy related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal from 2018.
Concerns about foreign interference and espionage are at an all-time high, according to Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess. Last month, the spy chief revealed ASIO had foiled multiple plots, including breaking up a “hive of spies” and attempts to cultivate journalists and judicial figures.
“The spies would use these opportunities to ingratiate themselves with the reporters, try to elicit insights on political, economic, defence and other issues, and identify any vulnerabilities that could be leveraged later,” he said.
“Almost certainly, the journalists’ phones, laptops and tablets would also have been targeted. If left unattended, even in a locked hotel room safe, the spies would have downloaded data and potentially installed malware giving them ongoing access to contacts, stories, emails and calls.”
