SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia will announce a ban on TikTok on government phones this week, following other countries in barring the Chinese-owned video app over security concerns, Australian newspapers reported late on Monday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese agreed to a government-wide ban on the use of TikTok after the completion of a review by the Home Affairs department, The Australian newspaper reported.
Victoria state will also ban the short video app from government phones, The Age newspaper reported, quoting a state government official as saying Victoria would follow the federal government’s guidance.
The United States, Britain, New Zealand, Canada, Belgium and the European Commission have already banned the app from official devices over security concerns.
TikTok has come under increasing scrutiny due to fears that user data from the app owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance could end up in the hands of the Chinese government, undermining Western security interests.
Tiktok Australia general manager Lee Hunter was quoted by The Age as saying the company was disappointed to learn of the ban through the media “despite our repeated offers to engage with government constructively about this policy”.
“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 as saying.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
