By Sahar Foladi
City of Greater Dandenong has adopted a motion to investigate banning TikTok on council devices, following in the footsteps of the State and Federal governments.
The proposed ban on what is described as the social media app of the young generations was passed at a council meeting on 11 April.
City of Greater Dandenong councillors unanimously supported the motion by Cr Tim Dark who was concerned about the “threat” to the cyber security of residents and council information.
“The TikTok app may be very popular. As the youngest councillor millennial a lot of my friends use TikTok but the threat is real,” Cr Dark said.
The app could be used by the developers to spy on users’ personal information, facial recognition, GPS movement and messages, he said.
Cr Dark also mentioned that Tiktok had admitted they were spying on journalists “who wrote articles that were anti-TikTok and anti-China” on December 22.
Articles published by multiple newsagencies including The Guardian UK also confirm this.
“They used TikTok to track these journalists to find out their movement, to access their contacts, their phone gallery as a massive intrusion so that they could track and see who was providing information to them and what they were writing about,” Cr Dark said.
Concerns over the app is growing world-wide as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, European Union and India have all banned the app from government devices.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald Tiktok general manager Australia and New Zealand, Lee Hunter said the company was “disappointed” by the federal ban, and that the decision was driven politically not factually.
While Ms Hunter denies the claims, articles published globally about Chinese officials spying through the social media app have surfaced the internet.
Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security Clare O’Neil’s department is conducting the seven-month-long review of security risks posed by the social media platform.
Ms O’Neil, who is also the MP for Hotham, said: “A mandatory direction has been issued by the Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department prohibiting the TikTok app on devices issued by Commonwealth departments and agencies.
“We have responded to the advice provided by agencies. This concerns using the app on government devices and follows similar decisions by the US, UK, Canada, NZ and The European Commission.”
