Australia Bans TikTok on Government Devices

KOMPAS.com - Australia said on Tuesday, April 4, that it will ban TikTok on all government devices due to national security concerns.

The country has now joined a growing list of Western nations cracking down on the Chinese-owned app.

Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said the ban would be enacted "as soon as practicable," and exemptions would only be granted on a case-by-case basis and with appropriate security measures in place.

China's 2017 Law on data privacy

TikTok is a company based in Beijing and is owned by ByteDance Ltd. Typically, the app, which has more than 1 billion users, is used to share lighthearted videos.

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Initially, many governments saw the app as an efficient tool to connect with a younger demographic, which is seen as hard to reach through traditional media channels.

However, cyber security experts have repeatedly warned that the app could be used to harvest user data that is then shared with the Chinese government.

Fergus Ryan, an analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute called the ban was a "no-brainer."

In 2017, China enacted a law requiring local firms to provide personal data to the state if it is relevant to national security.