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SYDNEY, March 17 (Reuters) – New Zealand will ban TikTok on devices with access to the parliamentary network since of cybersecurity issues, a government official stated on Friday.
TikTok will be banned on all devices with access to New Zealand’s parliamentary network by the finish of March, stated Parliamentary Service Chief Executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero.
TikTok has come beneath rising scrutiny due to fears that user information from the app owned by Beijing-primarily based enterprise ByteDance could finish up in the hands of the Chinese government, undermining Western safety interests.
Britain on Thursday banned the app on government phones with instant impact. Government agencies in the U.S. have till the finish of March to delete the app from official devices.
Gonzalez-Montero, in an e mail to Reuters, stated the selection was taken right after assistance from cybersecurity specialists and discussions inside government and with other nations.
“Primarily based on this info the Service has determined that the dangers are not acceptable in the present New Zealand Parliamentary atmosphere,” he stated.
Unique arrangements can be created for these who call for the app to do their jobs, he added.
Reporting by Lewis Jackson and Renju Jose Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman
Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
