One of the United States’ top technology regulators has urged Australia to ban TikTok in its current form, arguing the wildly popular Chinese-owned app is a sophisticated surveillance tool that poses a uniquely troubling national security threat.
The Albanese government will announce a ban on the use of TikTok on government-provided devices this week, a move US Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr described as the “lowest of the low-hanging fruit” when it comes to regulation of the video-sharing app.
“This really only ends one of two ways: a ban on TikTok or the complete divestiture from any entity beholden to the Chinese Communist Party,” Carr said. “It collects location data as well as draft messages and metadata, plus it has collected the text, images and videos that are stored on a device’s clipboard. The list of personal and sensitive data it collects goes on from there.”Describing TikTok as “far more alarming than your average app”, Carr said “entities that are beholden to the [People’s Republic of China] – like the ones in TikTok’s ownership chain – are not capitalist entities that are pursuing a profit motive.
“It is disappointing that we continue to be dragged into the wider geopolitical debate, apparently because of our country of origin.” Paterson said Australia was lagging its “Five Eyes” security partners – the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand – in banning politicians and public servants from using the app on work phones.
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