TikTok has opposed the ban and stressed the lack of evidence that suggests the app is a security risk to Australians.
In a statement on Tuesday, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said his department would issue a mandatory direction to prohibit the Chinese-owned app on devices issued by commonwealth departments and agencies.
"The direction will come into effect as soon as practicable. Exemptions will only be granted on a case-by-case basis and with appropriate security mitigations in place," he said. Lee Hunter, TikTok's general manager for Australia, said that the company was not informed of the proposed ban prior. "We are extremely disappointed by this decision, which, in our view, is driven by politics, not by fact," Hunter said in a statement. "Again, we stress that there is no evidence to suggest that TikTok is in any way a security risk to Australians and should not be treated differently to other social media platforms," Hunter added.
"It was ten months ago that TikTok admitted to me in a letter that Australian user data is accessible, and has been accessed in mainland China, which of course puts it in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party under their intelligence laws," Paterson said.
Currently, the European Parliament, European Commission, and the EU Council have imposed bans on TikTok on staff devices. In March,In 2020, India imposed a nationwide ban on TikTok and a host of other Chinese apps, citing security concerns and geopolitical issues. At the time, the video app had about 190 million users in the country, which was the highest at the time in the world.
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