April 5, 2023
The Albanese government's decision to ban TikTok from the work devices of public servants, although overdue, is welcome.
But it is only the first step to tackling the national security risks posed by social media apps headquartered in authoritarian countries, like TikTok.
It has been clear for many months that it is not safe to have TikTok on the phones of bureaucrats. In July last year, TikTok first admitted in a letter to me that data from Australian users of the app was accessible and had been accessed in China.
This was an important admission.
It meant that engineers working for TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, could access the individual and aggregate data collected by the app on its Australian users. China's national security laws, in particular article 7 of its national intelligence law of 2017, requires all companies and citizens of China to cooperate with Chinese intelligence agencies and to keep that cooperation secret.
We knew from that moment that our data could fall into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party Australia's No.1 foreign interference and state-based cybersecurity threat.
In October it was also first reported that TikTok had engaged in surveillance of individual US users.
The company did not just deny they had done so, they argued it wasn't even technically possible for them to do so.
But in December TikTok was forced to admit that was a lie. Four employees in China and the United States had used the app to try to spy on journalists who had been writing critical articles about the company.
This was the smoking gun after which inaction was inexcusable. It's why that month the US Senate unanimously passed a resolution to ban TikTok on government devices and why the Biden Administration implemented it, closely followed by other allies including every one of our Five Eyes intelligence sharing partners, the European Union and many others.
All of these revelations occurred on Labor's watch. It should not have taken this long for them to take responsibility and act. Earlier this year I conducted an audit of every federal government department and agency, which revealed a haphazard and inconsistent approach to banning TikTok from government-issued devices. Twenty-five government departments and agencies ban the app outright, 12 partially ban the app and 11 permit it. A further five agencies failed to directly answer the question.
The Albanese government's delay in taking action means we are lagging the world, in stark contrast to the leadership shown under the previous government when Australia was the first in the world to ban Huawei from our 5G network in August 2018 for similar national security risks.
Likeminded nations soon followed our lead. But there's still a chance for Australia to lead on TikTok. Now that we have acknowledged the app is not safe to be on the phones of public servants, what does it mean for the millions of regular Australians who use TikTok?
And beyond just data security, what should we do to address the risk of an app beholden to an authoritarian state being used to conduct foreign interference in our democracy?
The strategic environment Australia faces is the most grave since World War II. We simply cannot allow a company closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party to have unregulated access to millions of Australians, including many young people who rely on it for news and information about the world.
The opportunity for the CCP to sow division, undermine social cohesion, erode national unity and suppress inconvenient narratives is too great.
Australia has an opportunity to get ahead of the curve again and demonstrate global leadership by making it clear that any companies vying for our data and attention must operate on our terms in line with our values. The digital environment is evolving at breakneck speed and we need an approach that tackles the issues we're facing right now and prepares us for how new and existing platforms could be used into the future.
That's exactly why the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference Through Social Media was established. We will hold our first public hearings this month to explore all these issues. The Opposition stands ready to work with the government on bipartisan solutions to protect Australians and our democracy from this complex challenge.
Senator James Paterson is Shadow Minister for Cyber Security and Countering Foreign Interference
