Intelligence Officials Previously Warned Ottawa About TikTok’s Data-Harvesting Methods: Report

TikTok logo on an iPhone in London on Feb. 28, 2023. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

The federal government was allegedly warned by a Canadian intelligence official that the Beijing-linked video-sharing app TikTok was misleading governments and the general public about its data-harvesting methods nearly half a year before Ottawa banned the app from all federal devices, according to an internal briefing note.

A document prepared for the government in September 2022 by the Privy Council Office’s (PCO) Intelligence Assessment Secretariat said that TikTok was giving “false public and governmental reassurances about data sovereignty and security.”

The brief, which was obtained by the Toronto Star through an Access to Information request, was prepared about five months before cabinet announced in late February that it would be banning TikTok from all government-issued devices over security concerns.

The secretariat’s brief for the federal government outlined a number of concerns about TikTok and said that the video-sharing app has created “a globally embedded and ubiquitous collection and influence platform for Beijing to exploit.”

It also said that TikTok’s many users “unwittingly expose” themselves to significant security and privacy risks by using the app.

“As of 2022, there are over eight million Canadian TikTok users, ranging from 55 per cent of teenagers to members of Parliament,” said the brief. “It harvests their data, offering false public and governmental reassurances about data sovereignty and security.”

TikTok is owned by Beijing-based tech company ByteDance and has previously drawn concerns about potentially giving the Chinese regime access to its users’ data.

The app has also been banned by over 28 American states and the U.S. federal government has prohibited TikTok from being downloaded on state-owned devices.

Security Concerns

The September 2022 PCO intelligence brief also reportedly said that TikTok has access to all of its users’ devices, location data, contacts, personal information, and “biometric” identifiers, such as a user’s face and voice.

It further alleges that the app’s “adoption of new technologies practically ensures it will harvest greater variety of sensitive Western data,” while also referring to multiple unnamed sources suggesting that “Western data remains accessible to China.”

The Epoch Times has not reviewed the intelligence brief. TikTok also did not respond to a request for comment on the allegations prior to press time.

Although Ottawa banned TikTok from all government-issued devices in February 2023, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier said at the time that the ban was a precautionary measure and added that there was “no evidence” suggesting government information had been compromised through the app.

According to another memo, the federal government had also been warned about security risks associated with TikTok about two years before the PCO’s intelligence brief in September 2022.

A briefing note prepared by Public Safety Canada’s National and Cyber Security Branch (NCSB) for then-Public Safety Minister Bill Blair in September 2020 said the NSCB had a number of “privacy and national security considerations related to the TikTok application” at the time.