September 30, 2022
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil rejected an invitation to meet TikTok’s global chief counsel as the video app company sought to counter concerns about information security after revelations that staff in China have access to the data of millions of Australian users.
Letters revealed by an order for production of documents by the Senate from Liberal senator James Paterson, the opposition spokesman for cybersecurity, detail TikTok’s efforts to persuade Ms O’Neil that reporting in July by The Australian Financial Review was based on “flawed” analysis by Canberra-based cybersecurity and intelligence firm Internet 2.0.
In July, three days after the Financial Review revealed the analysis, which showed that the TikTok app checks a user’s device location at least once an hour, maps all of a device’s installed apps, and continues to annoy a user to access contacts even if originally rejected, TikTok’s director of public policy Australia, Brent Thomas, wrote to Ms O’Neil, inviting her to meet TikTok’s global chief counsel Erich Andersen.
But the invitation was declined in a reply letter, written by government policy specialist Peter Anstee on August 9, who outlined an investigation into regulation for questionable data collection practices by social media companies.
“The minister values your invitation to meet with your chief counsel,” the letter said. “Regrettably the minister is unable to meet, but the department would be pleased to meet with you in the coming weeks to discuss these matters. My office will be making contact shortly,”
TikTok’s letter repeated the same public relations messages refuting the collection of different types of data, which were sent out by its communication team after the Financial Review’s article.
This is despite the analysis of source code showing TikTok had written the ability to collect that very data into its Android app source code, and being sent five separate IP location searches which pointed to a China server connection by the Financial Review before publishing in July.
“These documents ... show how anxious TikTok is to avoid regulation which would protect Australian users from their mass data-harvesting activities which are ultimately accessible in China,” Mr Paterson told the Financial Review.
He said it was vital that the Albanese government proceed with plans to regulate TikTok and other platforms “based in authoritarian countries”.
TikTok Australia is owned by TikTok Ltd, which is registered in the Cayman Islands. TikTok Ltd is owned by ByteDance Ltd, a Chinese multinational company based in Beijing and domiciled in the Cayman Islands.
Among the concerns regularly raised is the link between its parent company ByteDance and the Chinese Communist Party, along with China’s wide-reaching National Intelligence Law, which requires organisations and citizens to “support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work”.
“TikTok continues to use misleading language to downplay their risky data handling practices and fails to acknowledge their China-based parent company and employees are all subject to the Chinese governments intelligence and security laws,” Mr Paterson said.
“This means sensitive data they collect on Australian users is able to be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party and represents a serious national security threat.”
