April 28, 2023
Social media giant TikTok is defending its data collection practices after a slew of countries banned the China-based app from government devices.
Australia banned the app from government electronics at the start of April over fears about clandestine data harvesting, following in the footsteps of nations such as the United States and Britain.
But a new report commissioned by TikTok and conducted by a third party found its data collection practices were in line with other major platforms including Facebook, Google and Twitter.
Australian cyber security expert Nigel Phair reviewed the privacy policies of the major sites and found Google collected the most data.
Google was found to collect data from 39 out of 40 different points, followed by Facebook owner Meta which collected 33, TikTok at 31 and Twitter at 29.
"I also had a look at the privacy policies of some of our other big corporates, including our four biggest banks, the telcos, some other big players, and a lot of data gets shared overseas," he told ABC Radio on Thursday.
"We are in a global ecosystem, particularly online. Data flows here, there and everywhere. Data is stored in all different parts of jurisdictions globally, and that's not a bad thing, that's just how it works."
Mr Phair called for the government to release the advice underpinning the banning of the app.
The government has argued TikTok poses significant privacy and security risks, including through Chinese national security laws which can be used to summon data held in the country.
"I'd like to see the evidence base that the Australian government and indeed any government has used for that, what the risk assessment outcome is to make that decision," Mr Phair said.
"I think that would be a really important thing for Australians to see."
He added that all social media companies collected the same information to improve user experience and better target advertising.
But opposition home affairs and cyber security spokesman James Paterson said TikTok's parent company ByteDance was intimately linked to the Chinese Communist Party and subject to China's intelligence laws.
"This means it would be trivially easy for the CCP to direct TikTok to use its algorithm to suppress information which is critical of the CCP, or to boost information that supports its narratives to millions of users in an instant," he said.
Senator Paterson, who chairs the parliament's foreign interference through social media committee, said the matter was not trivial.
"We heard evidence that TikTok has suppressed content that defies CCP-sanctioned narratives, such as those on the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre," he said.
"Disinformation that is favourable to the Chinese government, such as the claim there are no human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, is rife on the platform."
