ByteDance is being exiled from Canada, though the TikTok app is not.
Following the US’s example, Canada has spent recent years rubbing up against the world’s most popular Chinese app. In February 2023, TikTok was banned from all government devices, citing security concerns. Later that year, the government called for a broader national security review under the 1985 Investment Canada Act, which empowers the government to scrutinize foreign investments.
In concluding that review, the minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) — a federal agency responsible for regulating and supporting various aspects of the country’s economy, industry, and scientific endeavors — unveiled a significant, though not comprehensive, development in his country’s approach.
To address “specific national security risks,” the minister said yesterday, the offices of TikTok Technology Canada Inc. — the Canadian subsidiary of ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company — must now be shuttered. However, he noted, the government will not actually block any Canadians from using the app, as “the decision to use a social media application or platform is a personal choice.”
TikTok vs. Governments
Ever since TikTok blew up during the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide have struggled with how to administer: Ban it, to the chagrin of millions, or don’t, and risk consequences to mass privacy and national security.
Concern is widespread that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could conduct data gathering and spying through TikTok, since it wields potentially unlimited authority over Chinese companies. And “The CCP has long been known for having an enormous capability to gather otherwise benign-looking datasets, and to process them to produce intelligence to further its national interests,” notes Casey Ellis, founder and adviser at Bugcrowd. “While it can easily be argued that Western governments and companies are capable of the same, the CCP’s national interests are at best competitive, and at worst disruptive to the national interests of the West.”
Blocking the app to prevent CCP data gathering is controversial, however, since it’s massively popular, and there is no definitive, significant proof of such malicious activity to date. A few scattered countries have done so (for varying reasons), most notably India in 2020, but most have taken up solutions somewhere in the middle.
In 2020, President Trump signed executive orders effectively forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company, or else face a national ban. President Biden’s No TikTok on Government Devices Act banned the app in government settings, and his Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act carried the forced sale idea from the Trump administration. US policy is likely to subside now that Trump has been elected again. “Trump has made strong moves against ByteDance in the past,” Ellis notes. “He has a reputation for being tough on China, and for operating on the assumption that China is competitive to the US as a great power. I think we’ll see more activity around addressing ‘creeping threats’ from ByteDance and other Chinese companies, particularly those with a larger and established presence, both in the US and amongst its allies, over the coming year.”
Meanwhile, in 2023, the Canadian government took parallel actions. And just as it had in the US, TikTok says it will challenge Canada’s latest ruling in court.
What Would Actually Solve TikTok Privacy?
Debate has now begun over whether banning the corporate half of the TikTok operation will be helpful, if not abjectly harmful to Canada’s national security aims.
As Canadian academic Michael Geist argued in a blog post, “banning the company rather than the app may actually make matters worse since the risks associated with the app will remain but the ability to hold the company accountable will be weakened,” since it will no longer have a domestic presence. “It is hard to envision it prioritizing (or perhaps even complying) with Canadian regulatory processes if it is banned from formally operating in the jurisdiction.”
Dark Reading asked the ISED for its view of how the ban will benefit Canadian national security. ISED declined to provide any further comment, citing confidentiality provisions of the Investment Canada Act.
A separate development poised to directly affect TikTok data collection in Canada is the legislation C-27, which would supersede the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, Canada’s primary privacy legislation since 2000.
C-27 packages three separate Acts: the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the bit most relevant for TikTok user privacy; the Electronic Documents Act; and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act. Though it may be viewed as efficient and ambitious to address so many issues at once, ongoing debates primarily around the artificial intelligence component are currently holding up the passage of the other two along with it.