Canadian Government Workers Asked To Delete TikTok As White House Gives Agencies 30 Days To Impose Ban Against The App
Things are not looking great for TikTok as the leading social media app
is being ruled out as a threat to government employees in Canada and the
US.
An official statement
was sent out by the head of the Canadian Treasury Board. He says that
all employees working in the government must delete it from official
devices. Moreover, the justification provided had to do with a huge
level of risk attached in terms of both privacy and security.
They
feel it is the best precaution considering the high levels of threat
linked to such apps collecting information from the government via
mobile phones. In the same way, the statement went on to add how TikTok
on such mobile phones gives rise to a type of data collection protocol
that provides great access to content located on that same device.
There
was no indication mentioned about the platform compromising private
data yet but the risk is high to the Canadian population and that’s why
such respective measures are now coming into place.
On the other
hand, the representative of TikTok Canada says the news is a huge
disappointment as there was no move to discuss the matter with the
company first.
But this is just one of the recent decisions
taken by the government regarding the ban of TikTok on respective mobile
phones. A similar decision was brought into place by the respective
Europen Commission which informed all staff members to delete the
application by March 15 on all devices owned by Government employees.
Similarly,
the US Congress also spoke about some efforts made to ban the app
across the nation and not only on devices owned by employees.
Yesterday,
the White House told government agencies that they had just one month
to make sure the leading app was removed from the entire system as well
as devices owned by the government.
A memorandum would also be
issued in this regard to make sure all vendors keep data owned by US
officials safe and sound by getting rid of TikTok across the respective
system.
But as one can expect, the news is not making TikTok
happy. In fact, it’s giving rise to reports that it feels get instigated
by the likes of misinformation with little to no truth attached.
In
December of last year, we saw Congress vote to ban employees in the
Federal Government from having the app on their devices. Similarly, it
gave the current Biden administration a period of just two months to
provide directives on this matter.
It is the latest crackdown
against the app that is owned by Chinese parent firm ByteDance as many
fear there is a huge national security threat looming where officials in
the government may end up spying on US citizens.
Moreover, the
country’s chief of Security mentioned how these are the necessary
measures required to make sure the digital infrastructure in place is as
safe as can be. He also said the country would do whatever it takes to
make sure the security, as well as the privacy of the American
population, is as safe as possible.