Australia To Ban TikTok on Government Devices

Australia will announce a ban on TikTok on government phones this week, following other countries in barring the Chinese-owned video app over security concerns, Australian newspapers reported late on Monday. From a report: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese agreed to a government-wide ban on the use of TikTok after the completion of a review by the Home Affairs department, The Australian newspaper reported. Victoria state will also ban the short video app from government phones, The Age newspaper reported, quoting a state government official as saying Victoria would follow the federal government's guidance. The United States, Britain, New Zealand, Canada, Belgium and the European Commission have already banned the app from official devices over security concerns./i

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[Opportunist]

You forgot "Another bitcoin scam came to light".

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[anonymouscoward52236]

Ban Chinese apps, but everyone uses Chinese processors, lol! (Surely a processor is safe and can't have malicious bits baked in, right? right???)

Nice Start

[Barny]

Why not ban all social media apps from government phones?

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[fermion]

That is really the way it should work. No apps that are not necessary to work. Tik Tok just has shown the lack or of competent management at all levels. in my previous job, a third party App was used in one department to basically undercut the required transparency for communications. It was a purposeful means for mid management to hide transgressions.

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[drinkypoo]

Why not ban all social media apps from government phones?

Interacting with citizens via social media is a job function for some of these people, you can't just blanket ban that and have it make sense.

OTOH I'm always dismayed when government devices just let users install whatever they want, there should be a curated app store just for them with default deny.

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[Barny]

For sure, but they could have a special "not for other business use" device for such things. Or, better, only use the web apps for the various platforms.

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[bloodhawk]

That's exactly what many of them do in Aus. TikTok makes the headline as it is china bashing. But the reality is many government agencies actually ban all social media apps on government equipment.

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[_merlin]

They totally should - Jenny Mikakos using Twitter on her phone in Victorian Parliament while refusing to answer questions was a disgrace.

Work devices are for work. How is this hard?

[dmay34]

All games and entertainment apps should be banned from all work provided devices. This shouldn't even be controversial. Work give you a phone, it's used for work. Buy your own phone for your own personal use. This is for YOUR security as much as it is for your company's.

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[alvinrod]

Not to be (overly) pedantic, but there are people who have jobs that require accessing such applications. Perhaps you're a software tester for a company, or the person who runs the social media account, or even someone who reviews such apps for a publication.

I agree with your sentiment in a general sense, but blanket bans tend to be overly broad. Outside of security concerns it doesn't do much in the way of ensuring people aren't screwing around on the clock as they'll do it on their other, personal, dev

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[anonymouscoward52236]

I work in data mining, can I get some of that?

It's not about security, it's about popularity!

[Murdoch5]

If governments cared about security, then why not make proactive moves for the sake of bettering security? Banning TikTok has nothing to do with “security”, it's a popularity move, it's effectively government's taking the “ban TikTok challenge”. Instead of making meaningless, stupid, pointless, idiotic and dumb empty statements about security, why not implement real security measures?

A government can't speak out against encryption, privacy, digital liberty and digital freedom, th