Canadian companies should consider TikTok ban following government step: experts – National | 24CA News
The federal authorities’s transfer to ban TikTok on its telephones ought to make firms assume twice about their information insurance policies and contemplate blocking the app by itself units, teachers say.
Data privateness and expertise professors say Ottawa’s ban of the app, together with an investigation into the corporate launched final week by a gaggle of Canadian privateness commissioners, needs to be sufficient to push firms into pondering critically about social media.
TikTok, a video-based social media platform the place customers share music, dancing, educational content material and commentary, has lengthy been embroiled in privateness considerations as a result of its guardian firm ByteDance relies in China, the place legal guidelines permit the nation to demand entry to person information.
The app’s privateness coverage says it collects every part from e-mail addresses and cellphone numbers to the content material uploaded and knowledge on customers’ keystroke patterns, battery ranges, audio settings and areas.
“Given the Chinese government’s track record of collecting secret information,if I was running an enterprise … I would certainly be advising my employees not to have this installed on their own devices,” mentioned Brett Caraway, a professor of media economics on the University of Toronto.
Companies could have to be particularly cautious of the app if their staff cope with mental property, patents and commerce secrets and techniques, which may doubtlessly fall into Chinese fingers, he warned.
“But it’s not just strictly a Chinese phenomenon,” he mentioned.
“The U.S. government has had similar provisions as well, and there’s plenty of U.S. digital intermediary platforms that have transferred data back to the U.S. government, allegedly for national security reasons.”
Asked whether or not they would ban TikTok from company units, Canada’s prime banks, telecommunications firms and several other companies with Chinese operations, together with Tim Hortons proprietor Restaurant Brands International, Canada Goose and Sun Life Financial, didn’t reply.
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Whether firms require staff to take away TikTok from their telephones ought to depend upon the character of their business and the quantity of delicate info employees would deal with on these units, mentioned Sam Andrey, director of coverage and analysis on the Leadership Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“I don’t want to say a blanket statement but I think the government’s ban should serve as a reminder to companies to review their security and privacy practices writ large,” he mentioned.
But Sara Grimes, director of the Knowledge Media Design Institute on the University of Toronto, mentioned banning the app on company telephones doesn’t appear “feasible” as a result of the federal government has offered little details about the explanation for its resolution to finish using TikTok on its units.
In saying the ban, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier provided solely “an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security” as the explanation.
“Banning an incredibly popular app based on vague, undefined concerns leads to dangerous territory,” Grimes mentioned in an e-mail.
“What Canadian companies might want to do is call for more information about why these various governments around the world are banning this specific app and how they reached that decision.”
She suspects some firms will react by erring on the facet of warning, whereas others will dismiss any suggestion of a ban as an “overaction” and proceed to make use of the app.
Regardless of which route they go in, Vivek Krishnamurthy, a legislation professor on the University of Ottawa, mentioned firms ought to assume “long and hard” about their information privateness practices and undertake a threat evaluation designed to uncover how uncovered they is perhaps to TikTok.
He mentioned, “I would hope that they have their own houses in order with regard to how they collect and handle personal data of Canadians and people around the world.”
© 2023 The Canadian Press
