Is TikTok bad? Here’s why many Western countries are taking a closer look

TikTok is facing increased scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, as Western countries pay critical attention to the reach of the Chinese-owned platform and the risks it poses.

Canada’s federal privacy regulator and three provincial partners this week launched a joint investigation into whether social media platforms meet the expectations of privacy laws and how they collect and use data. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the country’s electronic spy agency is monitoring threats from TikTok.

A pair of European Union policy-making institutions also banned video-sharing apps from staff phones over cybersecurity concerns this week.

Closer to home, a growing list of US states has reportedly banned the app from government phones. There are also restrictions for US federal government employees, with some exceptions.

The growing focus on all things TikTok comes amid worsening relations between China and the West, a backdrop that experts say should not be ignored.

“There needs to be some recognition of the political climate in the context in which we are debating this. [TikTok issue] now,” Vass Bednar, executive director of the Master of Public Policy in Digital Society program at Hamilton’s McMaster University, told The Canadian Press.

“And I think why now it’s an awkward question because this kind of investigation can happen at any time and it can happen to other companies on social media.”

Canadian concerns

The upcoming Canadian investigation involves federal privacy commissioners and their provincial counterparts in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec — though the issue is of nationwide interest.

“All of Canada’s provincial and territorial privacy commissioners have been notified of the joint investigation,” Vito Pilieci, senior communications adviser with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, said via email.

Pilieci said the federal watchdog monitors compliance with Canada’s federal private sector privacy laws. But those three provinces have their own laws that may apply, so their regulators are involved.

After the investigation was announced, a TikTok spokesperson said, “We welcome the opportunity to work with federal and provincial privacy protection authorities to set the record straight on how to protect the privacy of Canadians.”

TikTok has become one of the fastest growing social media platforms in the country in recent years.

About 26 percent of Canadian adults are on TikTok, according to a census-based online survey taken last spring. That’s up from 15 percent two years earlier.

Seventy-six percent of Canadian adults aged 18 to 24 have a TikTok account, according to the same 2022 survey.

The Canadian regulator’s investigation will partly focus on how the platform’s policies affect its youngest users — particularly whether TikTok “obtains valid and meaningful consent from these users for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information.”

Will users care?

McMaster University’s Bednar believes that the investigation will not force Canadians to rethink their use of TikTok.

The application is built to attract users and that TikTok can understand that people will not leave the platform “which may create a threat. [of an investigation] more empty,” said Bednar.

However, Sara Grimes, director of the Knowledge Media Design Institute at the University of Toronto, said the discovery of a privacy breach or other problem could change consumer thinking.

“If the investigation confirms that TikTok is violating our privacy rights, and/or the privacy rights of teenagers and children, I will certainly disrupt the user habits,” he told The Canadian Press in an email.

“Contrary to popular belief, young people care deeply about their privacy and how their data is used. And parents care about their children’s data, too.”

But why TikTok?

Concerns about TikTok are not new, and the platform is similar to others. Anatoliy Gruzd, co-director of the Social Media Lab at the Metropolitan University of Toronto, said that what is now seen is geopolitical tensions.

“Like any other platform, TikTok collects user data,” Gruzd said, noting that bad actors can hack or disrupt certain accounts just as they can on social media anywhere else.

But he said the “extra attention” focused on TikTok appeared to be related to its ownership by ByteDance, a Chinese-owned company and related concerns that its data could be accessed in Beijing.

Lynette Ong, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, doubts that concerns about the data that TikTok holds are important compared to other apps – such as WeChat or Alipay – which may have related financial and personal data that are more worthy of regulatory attention. .

“This does not mean that Chinese companies cannot spy or pose a threat to our national security,” he said.

But cybersecurity experts such as Brian Haugli, CEO of the US company SideChannel, who see a danger in the information that TikTok users may not know, after downloading an application that can “see and save” individual locations, networks accessed and anything else. incoming message.

“If you really go through all the permissions that are out there, I don’t think that most users are aware of, or willing to hand over, to a company that they own and live in China,” Haugli told the CBC National in December.

While these concerns have led to some TikTok bans on EU and US government devices, it’s unclear whether the move will be implemented here.

Asked whether Canada would follow suit, Treasury Board spokesman Martin Potvin told The Canadian Press by email that Ottawa is “assessing the situation, including legislative announcements by US allies, and recently the European Commission, and will determine next steps if necessary.”