Australia announced today that it will ban government officials from using the Chinese app TikTok on their work devices, joining a host of western countries that have taken similar decisions for security reasons.
The decision was taken on the advice of Australian intelligence and will be implemented “as quickly as possible”, said Australian Justice Minister Mark Dreyfus.
Australia is the latest country in the so-called “Five Eyes” alliance to ban TikTok in government, after the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.
Similar measures have been taken in France, the Netherlands and the European Commission.
At the center of the concerns is a 2017 Chinese law that requires local companies to hand over personal data allegedly related to security, at the request of the authorities.
Initially, TikTok said the bans were “rooted in xenophobia”, before admitting last December to collecting personal data to spy on journalists.
The popularity of the video sharing app has exploded in recent years, particularly among young people. Many Australian Government departments had previously sought to expand their presence on the app to reach a younger audience.
Tiktok is owned by Chinese group ByteDance, which has a similar but separate app for China.
Earlier this year, the Australian Government also announced that it was removing Chinese-made CCTV surveillance cameras from politicians’ offices, also for security reasons.
*With Lusa
