August 5, 2022
Friday 5 August 2022
Interview with Peta Credlin,Sky News
Subjects: TikTok, PJCIS
PETA CREDLIN: TikTok is Chinese owned with privacy and security experts sounding the alarm about excessive amounts of data being harvested through the app and accessed back in Beijing. This week in the United Kingdom,a group of employees successfully shut down a TikTok account being run by the British Parliament, citing massive security risks. So what's the position herein Australia? Joining me now is the shadow minister for cyber security and countering foreign interference. An important player too, and revealing the data harvesting of TikTok in Australia, Senator James Paterson. James, thank you for coming on. I think this is such an important issue. You've really led the charge on this issue about TikTok in Australia. 7 million of us got the app. Explain how the data is or can potentially be accessed by Beijing.
SENATOR PATERSON: Peta, it's great to be with you. We've learned quite a lot about the way in which TikTok operates in Australia in just the last two months. First there was a leak to BuzzFeed News from a whistleblower that showed that contrary to the promises they had previously made to Americans, Australians, British and all other foreign citizens, that our data would be safe because it was stored in the United States and Singapore. We learned that it had been accessed and was being repeatedly accessed in mainland China. I wrote to TikTok to seek the same clarification for Australia and they admitted the same thing. What has become even more worrying is to find out not just that our data is accessible in China, but how much data they are collecting through the app. An Internet 2.0 report revealed that they are collecting things like our location on a regular basis, our full contact book, the contents of the hard drives of our phones, photos, videos, our calendar, a whole lot of things, including even our history of Wi-Fi locations that are not necessary for the functioning of the app. And you have to really question why they would be collecting that and why this is a particular concern when a company like TikTok is. Because as you pointed out, it's owned by a Chinese parent company, Bytedance, that's subject to China's national security legislation, including the 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires all entities and citizens of China to secretly cooperate with China's intelligence agencies if requested.
CREDLIN: So the interesting thing is people might be at home watching and saying, look, I'm just an ordinary person, I'm on TikTok, but why on earth would the Chinese government be interested in me? But this goes to the aggregation of data. You know the way in which citizens’ data, millions and millions of different footprints, as you've just described, they're pulled together and then they get a very accurate picture when they cross-reference that data as to what's happening in a country.
PATERSON: That's right. The Chinese government is building the most sophisticated technological surveillance state we've ever seen in history. And it's not just their own citizens that they're interested in. And it's not even just citizens or former citizens of theirs in the Chinese diaspora, elsewhere in the world. They're interested in us, too. And they have a philosophy that they would rather collect the data now and not need it later than fail to collect the data now and want it later. So they're in a mass data harvesting exercise and it can be used for a whole range of things. Yes, espionage and foreign interference against individuals who might be a political dissident. But as you say, on ordinary citizens, too, because it allows them to build a picture of our habits, of our behaviours, of the ways in which we can be influenced, so that if in the future they wanted to intervene in our democracy, for example, they've got a really rich data set that will enable them to do that in a very sophisticated, targeted way and in a way in which we not might not be able to detect.
CREDLIN: And of course, you know, your phone's a microphone and your phone is a camera into your life. Most people have it beside their bed. They check it every way with them more than now, a handbag or a wallet. Everything is on that phone. So you are very exposed if your phone is hacked or using apps that are not sound. You wrote to the Albanese government last month. You wanted information about how Australians can be protected. What's been the response from the new Home Affairs Minister, Clare O'Neil?
PATERSON: Well, for the first month after I wrote to Clare O'Neil, there was no response at all other than one public statement by the minister that she was concerned about this and that she hoped Australians were concerned about it too. Well, I hope the Minister has now realised that she's a minister of the government and not just a commentator, and that action is required. And today the Department of Home Affairs for the first time has acknowledged that this is an issue, through a spokesman, and said that they're looking into it as well. It's a good start that they're looking into it. But we're going to need some action on this. I’ve encouraged them to look at all possible regulatory options to solve this problem because it's not going to solve itself. And you might have seen in the media yesterday, Peta, advice has been given to parliamentarians that we should have two phones so that we can have our social media apps like TikTok on one, and our sensitive emails and other things on another. Well, that's not very practical advice for the 7 million Australians who aren't going to go out and buy a second phone so they can have TikTok. They need protection by the government and they need the government to act. So I'll be holding them to account for that.
CREDLIN: Look, I'd be telling people, go into your settings, turn off access to your contacts, your camera, all of those things. But to be honest, I haven't got the app on my phone. I've read a bit too much about these things in the past. Get it off your phone. Delete it off your phone and just don't take the chance.
I’ve got to ask you, you used to chair the Parliamentary Intelligence Committee, and Andrew Hastie before you in the last Parliament. There is a bit of a blue going on about this committee, not on your side, but inside Labor because, for the benefit of my guests, of course, after the election, the committee is reformed. Labor will now have the chair position, but they can't decide whether the left of the Labor Party is going to have a majority of this committee, which I think would be terrible, or whether the right, which has traditionally had the majority of this committee, will keep the numbers. Because of that this committee hasn't been reformed.Where is it up to?
PATERSON: Peta, as you know, the PJCIS has a very long history of bipartisanship. So I really am very reluctant to criticise the government about the functioning of the committee. But it is very unfortunate that after the Federal Parliament has sat for two weeks, that arguably the most important committee of the Parliament is the only one which has not yet been formed and will not able to be formed for at least another month until the Parliament sits again, and therefore can't start the very important work that it has to do. So I'm not sure what's going on inside the Labor Party that is causing them to be not able to resolve this issue and not be able to put forward the normal nominees that they would for the committee. But I really hope they're able to resolve it soon in the national interest, because this is a really important committee that needs to be stood up and start its work again.
CREDLIN: I worked for Defence Minister Robert Hill when we passed the legislation to establish that committee. I handled that legislation, the creation of the numbers on that committee and how it would function. It's never been a committee of the Labor right. That would be a departure if it went to the Labor left.
PATERSON: Well, the people that I've worked with most closely on the committee in the past have been people like Anthony Byrne, a very long serving chair and deputy chair of the committee. He's someone who's very driven by the national interest, who's a very patriotic Australian and did an outstanding job and was a great partner. And there have been other really good, diligent members of the committee as well. It's been reported in the media that the government intends to nominate Peter Khalil as the chair. If that's true, then I would welcome that. Peter is someone else who takes these issues very seriously and has sound views on national security issues. But you've got to give him the committee that he can work with, and he can't do anything until he's been appointed.
CREDLIN: James Paterson, I'll leave it at that. Please stay in touch with us on the TikTok issue and what you might get back from the new minister. Thank you.
ENDS
