New Zealand Says Politicians “TikTok Is a Security Risk, Don’t Use It”
New Zealand’s National Assembly has asked politicians not to use TikTok, a video-sharing social network owned by a Chinese company, saying it is a security risk, New Zealand media reported on the 1st.
NewsHub said National Assembly Speaker Trevor Mallard sent an email to all political parties last week advising the Chinese government to refrain from using the data stored in the equipment if it used TikTok as a business equipment.
“The use of TikTok with the equipment of the National Assembly office strongly recommended that it not be used by the parliamentary office, saying it could pose a security risk because it allows the Chinese government to access the data stored on the equipment,” he said in an email.
If lawmakers continue to use Tik-Tok, they should take special care, such as removing access to places and not linking them to other social media accounts, he said. “Even if Tik-Tok is used as personal equipment, we should keep in mind the above points to keep information safe.”
The e-mail then introduced an article in June that showed that ByteDance employees in China continued to access data from TikTok users in the United States, saying that TikTok did not hand over any data to the Chinese government, but pointed out that ByteDance is closely related to the Chinese government.
NewsHub said in 2020, the National Assembly’s cybersecurity team also advised lawmakers and parliamentary employees to delete those who installed the TikTok app, saying Tik-Tok poses a serious personal information and security risk.