April 4, 2023
Tuesday 4 April 2023
Interview with Luke Grant, 2GB Mornings
Subjects: Reported TikTok ban on federal devices, bipartisan AUKUS delegation to the US, ACTU position on AUKUS, Donald Trump
LUKE GRANT: After months of speculation, it would appear the Albanese government has finally decided to ban TikTok that app on all government devices. Now the ban follows the same move from the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and France and does raise a number of questions as to why it took so long for Australia to follow suit. Attention will now certainly turn to banning the app in the private domain as it's being considered in the United States. Someone who has been raising awareness about the dangers of TikTok, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security, Senator James Paterson, who I am delighted to say is on the line from the United States of America. Senator, thank you for your time.
JAMES PATERSON: Luke, thank you for having me.
GRANT: Not at all. I think that's the most important point. Why do we seem to be dragging our feet here a little bit? I think it was ten months ago, was it not, that TikTok, or it was confirmed to you that TikTok data is being accessed in mainland China?
PATERSON: You're exactly right, Luke. I have been calling on the Albanese government to act on this issue for ten months now since TikTok admitted in a letter to me in July last year that our data is accessible by their employees in mainland China. And ever since that point, we've known that is a risk to the data security and privacy of Australians. But there have been many other revelations since, and I've written to the Minister of Home Affairs and Cyber Security. I wrote to the Prime Minister about it, and I've been calling on them publicly to do it, particularly in the last few months when so many of our allies and friends have acted and Australia has not. And even today, we don't know if the government is in fact going to do this. It's been predicted for a number of weeks in the media that they're about to ban TikTok and they haven't done so yet. I hope it is true, but gee, it's very late.
GRANT: It really is. Have you heard from any of the other countries I mentioned the US or Canada or New Zealand, or any of them raising questions about why we've taken so long to come to this position if in fact that's where the government lands on this today?
PATERSON: Unfortunately, Luke, it has been a topic of conversation with a number of the people I've met in the United States over the last week. They are puzzled as to why Australia, such a close and trusted ally of the United States, hasn't been with them acting on this issue much more promptly. They don't really understand why we haven't moved more quickly as they did. It's now more than 90 days since the United States first banned TikTok on government devices. And here it's a completely bipartisan issue. Democrats and Republicans are equally concerned about it and trying to act on it. And it has been a source of confusion for them that we haven't been with them.
GRANT: So just for listeners that might not be familiar with TikTok. This is effectively, is it not a social media platform, a little like the others that we know about Instagram and Facebook, where people post all kinds of different videos and the like. And I guess in posting that information, they reveal information about themselves as part of the data that could be captured and the fact it can be accessed by the Chinese government in China. That's the concern, is that close to the mark?
PATERSON: That's a very good summary, Luke. It's a viral social media app for video sharing, which is particularly popular among young Australians. TikTok claims have 6 to 7 million users in Australia and independent cyber security researchers have found that the app collects an extraordinary amount of personal information on its users. For example, it persistently asks for your contacts. It maps the other apps installed on your phone. It logs the Wi-Fi networks that you connect to. It even tries to locate your physical location, and it has the power to record the keystrokes that you've entered into the app, potentially, meaning that your credit card details or passwords could be captured by the app. Now, all of that could fall in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party because TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese parent company which is intimately tied to the Chinese Communist Party and which is subject to the intelligence laws of China, which require all Chinese companies and Chinese citizens to assist intelligence agencies in their work. So we would never know if that data is being handed over en masse to those intelligence agencies.
GRANT: So, James, what's your advice to private users of TikTok here in Australia?
PATERSON: My advice for any Australians using the app or any parents or grandparents whose kids are on the app is to exercise extreme caution and think very carefully about whether or not you're willing to take the risks to your personal privacy and security from being on the app. It may come back to haunt you and to bite you in years to come. And while all social media apps certainly collect information on you and pose some risk. Ones like TikTok, which are headquartered in an authoritarian country, pose an extra degree of risk. So that's why I've never had it on my phone. And I advise others not to put it on theirs either.
GRANT: What about the timing here? We had the Victorian Premier in China last week. We've got other premiers going, Mark McGowan in a couple of weeks. The conversation between our government and the Chinese Communist Party is apparently somewhat elevated from the former government's tone. Did we see anything in that, is there's something going on here behind the scenes that perhaps we're not aware of. What do you think?
PATERSON: Well, I certainly would like the Prime Minister, if he does indeed announce the ban today to explain what has taken so long. I mean, it's been reported that the review which underpins this decision was handed to the government a number of weeks ago. And of course, our allies have been acting for a number of months now. And it seems that the Prime Minister was waiting for something before announcing it and only he can answer what that is, I don't know. And I'm as curious as you and I imagine a number of your listeners are.
GRANT: And should government as well today come out with a plan in relation to those private citizens? Should there be something said to Australians everywhere, things that they need to be careful about?
PATERSON: That's exactly right, Luke. First of all, we have to provide a clear advice to Australians about the risk and only the government can do that. Secondly, we have to develop policies and potentially regulation which provides protection for those millions of Australian users. It's one thing to get it off government devices, but all those private citizens deserve protection too, particularly because they're exposed to a risk of foreign interference in our democracy by using the app, because it would be trivially easy for the Chinese Communist Party to direct TikTok to suppress content, which they don't favour, to elevate content which supports their narratives and to sow division and undermine social cohesion in our democracy. And in a strategic environment we are now living in, that is far too great a national security risk for us to tolerate. So wider action is absolutely necessary and it must happen quickly.
GRANT: People will say, hang on, you were in government not that long ago. Why didn't the former government do something? That's a fair question. What's a fair answer?
PATERSON: All of the most alarming revelations about TikTok's operations have happened on the Albanese government's watch. It was July last year on their watch that I found out that TikTok data is going to China. It was in October last year and it was first reported that TikTok might be spying on individual users. It was in December last year that TikTok admitted the they were spying on that journalist to try and identify their sources. And it was in the weeks and months that followed that all of our likeminded partners and allies acted, including every single member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance until now, except us. And so really, the government has to take responsibility. They won the election. They're in power. These are the decisions you have to make when you run the country. And this has happened on their watch.
GRANT: The Senator doesn't need me to pump his tyres, but I can tell you he's at the forefront of all these debates, and thank goodness you are, James. You're in the USA. What are you doing there, if I can ask?
PATERSON: I'm here on an AUKUS defence industry delegation meeting with members of Congress, officials from the Biden administration and other defence industry partners to work out how we can take advantage of the opportunity presented by AUKUS and make sure that it's delivered. Because the ambitious plan that we've got to obtain nuclear submarines and all the other technologies alongside that, including hypersonic missiles, cyber technologies, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, all of that depends on removing the regulatory barriers that currently stand in the way of seamlessly sharing that between the three AUKUS partners Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. So we had some really productive conversations this week, but we've got a lot more work to do.
GRANT: What do you make of the union movement suggesting that perhaps they wouldn't work or they wouldn't have their members work on nuclear powered submarines? That's a hurdle the government didn't they thrown in front of it.
PATERSON: I'm very concerned by the comments that the ACTU president, Michelle O'Neill, made about this issue. One of the major challenges in delivering AUKUS is delivering the workforce we need and if the union movement is effectively trying to sabotage it by withdrawing their labour from it, then they are posing a serious threat to our national security. Michelle O'Neill said this is a decades-old policy of the union movement. Well, I think it's time that it's reviewed. And I want to have a shout out to those responsible unions that are supportive of AUKUS, including the Australian Workers Union, who said that they will of course be supportive of that and they'll be happy to take work on it. I want to see more of that from other unions.
GRANT: I won't ask you to comment on the case because that's way out of our jurisdiction, but can you give me a sense of Trump mania at the moment? Of course, he's flown into New York City. I imagine there's plenty of media coverage of what we can see. But is there evidence on the street that he's so he's getting support from?
PATERSON: You're quite right, Luke, I, of course, won't comment on a legal proceeding in another country, but I was in New York City over the weekend for meetings. And I've got to say it was business as usual. It wasn't obvious that was going on, unless, of course, you're tuned into cable news, in which case it's the utterly dominant story over here at the moment and being followed with great interest by many Americans.
GRANT: All right, Senator, travel safely. Good of you to give us some time. Thanks so much.
PATERSON: Thanks, Luke.
GRANT: James Paterson.
