Security concerns surrounding data sharing landed executives from TikTok in the government’s hot seat earlier this week.
MPs raised concerns about the Chinese government accessing Canadian user data from the social media platform. ByteDance, a Beijing-based company, owns TikTok. Under local national security laws, companies could be asked to help gather information regarding state intelligence work.
But David Lieber, TikTok’s head of privacy public policy for the Americas, said the Chinese government hasn’t made such a request.
“We’ve been quite clear that we would not disclose user data to the Chinese government if they made a request. They have not made such a request, and the Chinese government has not asserted the rights over any TikTok user data.”
If the government were to ask for such information, Lieber said they would disclose it in a transparency report to the Canadian government.
He told the House of Commons committee on access to information, privacy and ethics the company stores user data from Canadians in the U.S., Singapore, and Malaysia.
The federal government banned government devices from accessing the app in late February, citing “vulnerabilities to cyber attacks.” Several provinces and municipalities took similar action soon after.
Steve de Eyre, director of public policy and government affairs for Canada, said the move was unfair. ”
We do operate similar to other platforms. I will say our policy — and we’ve been public about this — is that there probably isn’t a need to have any social media apps or entertainment apps or gaming apps on a government employee device. But those rules should apply equally to all platforms.”
Eyre said the social media platform handles the data of Candian users under local rules, such as the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and provincial privacy laws.
Canadian privacy regulators are currently investigating how TikTok uses personal user information.
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