March 22, 2023
FEDERAL MPs and senators are taking security into their own hands and deleting or deactivating TikTok from their mobile phones.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil is considering advice on a government-wide ban on the use of the social media platform.
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie told reporters on Tuesday her office had disabled TikTok a week ago, as a number of foreign governments including the US, the UK and New Zealand announced bans based on security advice.
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said he had taken the app off his government-issued phone.
"The government's reviewing all the social media platforms," he told reporters on Tuesday.
"The Chinese government does run TikTok, and I think that's an issue."
TikTok's Beijing-based owner ByteDance has rejected concerns over the handling of user data and privacy, and says the company works within the law.
Opposition cyber security spokesman James Paterson said the platform posed a "serious national security threat" in two respects.
"One is the way in which it handles data and the espionage risk that comes from that," he said.
"And the second is the risk of foreign interference in that it reaches millions of Australians with a non-transparent algorithm that could be used to promote narratives supportive of the Chinese Communist Party and suppress ones that are critical of it."
Senator Paterson acknowledged the company worked within the law.
"One of the laws they have to work within is China's 2017 national intelligence law because they are headquartered in China," he said.
"And what those laws require is that all Chinese citizens and companies co-operate with China's intelligence services and keep that co-operation secret.
"Meanwhile, Ms O'Neil told a national cyber conference in Canberra on Tuesday that the Medibank and Optus incidents marked a turning point in cyber security in Australia.
She said it was important Australia developed a sovereign capability in cyber security, and that small and medium-sized businesses were supported to improve their information security.
Ms O'Neil said government information security especially mattered because "the organisation that holds the most data on Australians is government"
