After the United States, Canada and European authorities, New Zealand is in turn waging war on TikTok. The country announced on Friday March 17 its intention to ban the Chinese social network from the phones of members of Parliament.
The ban will affect all devices with access to the parliamentary network, said Rafael Gonzalez-Montero, an official of the House of Representatives. It will take effect on March 31. The risks are not “not acceptable in the current parliamentary environment in New Zealand”said Mr. Gonzalez-Montero. “The decision was made based on the analyzes of our own experts, after a discussion with our colleagues in government and internationally”he added.
A global trend launched in 2020
New Zealand is following in the footsteps of Canada, the UK and US federal agencies, which have already banned TikTok from government devices due to data security concerns. The European Commission and Parliament have also ordered to ban the video-sharing application from their employees’ devices.
This global anti-TikTok movement started in India in 2020. The social network was on a list of banned applications after deadly clashes on the border with China, with New Delhi claiming to defend its sovereignty. That same year, former President Donald Trump accused the Chinese app of being a spying tool for Beijing.
TikTok has admitted that employees of its parent company, ByteDance, have accessed Americans’ account information, but has always denied passing this data to the authorities. The current President of the United States, Joe Biden, has threatened to completely banish the application from the territory, if it does not separate from ByteDance.