He New Zealand Government will prohibit the use and download of the Chinese application TikTok in devices used by members of Parliament from the March 31st for cybersecurity reasons, joining the list of nations expressing concern about the dangers of using the application, which could lead to handling either espionage by the regime Xi Jinping.
The executive director of the Parliamentary Services, Rafael Gonzalez-Monteroalso ordered that applications be removed from all cell phones, tablets and other electronic devices for official use in the coming days due to the danger of expose sensitive official information.
Legislative authorities only they will make special exceptions “for those who need the application to perform their democratic functions”, specified the source.
The decision follows the advice of experts in cyber security and it occurs after the “discussion” between members of the New Zealand government and other countries.
“Based on this information, the (Parliamentary) Service has determined that risks are not acceptable in the current New Zealand parliamentary environment”, Gonzalez-Montero pointed out, quoted in a statement.
United States, Canada and United Kingdom they also banned the popular platform of the Chinese group bytedance on government devices for fear that authorities in China may have access to the data.
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The European Comission it also ordered its employees to uninstall the app on their devices.
The first such action was taken in 2020 in Indiawhich banned various Chinese apps after clashes on the disputed border between the two Asian giants.
That same year, the then president of the United States, Donald Trump accused TikTok of collecting information for China.
TikTok has admitted that ByteDance employees in China had accessed US account details, but has always denied it is handing over their details to authorities in Beijing.
The current US President, Joe Biden has threatened to ban the app entirely if it doesn’t disassociate itself from ByteDance.
The social network TikTokwhose parent company is the Chinese technology bytedanceconfirmed this Wednesday to the news agency AFP that the US government recommended that the application be separated from its owner, in order to not be banned in the United States.
“If the objective is to protect national security, calling for prohibition or alienation is unnecessary, since neither option solves the problems of the data access and transfer industry”, reacted a TikTok spokesperson contacted by the AFP.
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“We remain confident that the best path to address national security concerns is the protection of US-based user data and systems, with robust monitoring, investigation, and third-party verification,” the spokesperson added. .
The measure, the strongest against the social network so far by the Joe Biden administration, comes amid pressure from lawmakers to restrict the platform, which has more than 100 million users in the country. .
Last week, General Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency (NSA) expressed to the Senate Armed Services Committee his concern about TikTok “because of the information it has, its algorithm and its influence.”
(With information from EFE and AFP)
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