Urges US And UK, New Zealand Bans TikTok On Government Devices

Photo/dok illustration. TikTok

JAKARTA - New Zealand is the latest to ban TikTok on government devices, following in the footsteps of Belgium, Britain, and the United States (US). Again, this is due to the safety concerns of the app.

The New Zealand government is concerned about the permission requested by TikTok to access data for application purposes. And, they are wary of sensitive data that the platform can collect for use by the Chinese government.

The country is now seeking to ban TikTok on all government devices on access to its parliamentary network from the end of this month.

If there are employees in the government who want to use TikTok for any promotional reasons or reach out to citizens, then they need to make special arrangements.

"The service has determined that the risk is unacceptable within New Zealand's current parliament," the New Zealand government said in its announcement, quoted by The Guardian, Saturday, March 17.

"The decision to block the TikTok app was made based on our own analysis and following discussions with our colleagues across the government and internationally," he added.

Previously reported, the New Zealand government's decision followed similar steps by other Western countries. The British government recently also announced TikTok would be banned from mobile phones of ministers and civil servants. Likewise, the US, Canada, and the European Commission already have the same ban.

TikTok itself is owned by China-based company ByteDance, and concerns about its security center on whether it can access data recorded by billions of app users, or manipulate algorithms to encourage pro-China content.

However, TikTok denies its data or algorithms can be accessed and manipulated by the Chinese government, saying it has not been requested for data, and will reject any requests in the future.

Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden's administration told ByteDance to release their shares in the app otherwise the US could ban it altogether.

It is known, the platform's founders own 20 percent of the shares, employees own 20 percent more and the global investment community owns 60 percent of the shares. Meanwhile, TikTok says it has spent $1.5 billion on the equivalent of IDR 23 trillion on data security and rejecting the app is dangerous for government officials.