Ontario also considers TikTok ban on government-issued devices

TikTok is officially banned from Canadian government-issued mobile devices today and the Ontario government is considering doing the same.

Worries over the app come from the fact that the Chinese government has a stake in TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, and laws permit the country to have access to user data.

Treasury Board spokesman Ian Allan says the ban is something Ontario is looking into as well.

Federal and provincial privacy commissioners began investigating the social media platform just days ago but there is no evidence that government information has been compromised.

The ban is a precautionary measure, and similar bans have been issued in the US and the European Union on work-issued devices as well.

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A Treasury Board statement said the decision comes after a review by the chief information officer of Canada. They came to the conclusion that TikTok “presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.”

A law professor at the University of Ottawa, Errol Mendes, says the ban is “long overdue”.

Mendes says the decision was also likely inevitable, given privacy concerns around the video-sharing app.