TikTok has been banned by the NSW, Northern Territory and Tasmanian governments, as states and territories fall into line with the Commonwealth, with the exception of WA.
The prohibitions on the Chinese-owned app follow intelligence agency advice about TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, which focused on potential data harvesting.
The WA government has yet to formally ban TikTok but said it would follow advice from the Commonwealth, with WA Premier Mark McGowan saying he had deleted the app from his phone.
NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles asked government employees to delete TikTok on phones with access to their government email account by Tuesday.
“We need to ensure our government networks and information are secure,” Ms Fyles said.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said NSW government employees would be advised to implement the change as soon as possible, with the popular social media app to be scrubbed from their computers and phones.
Mr Minns said NSW government staff may still use TikTok on occasion to communicate with the public on issues like health.
“The NSW government will be implementing a number of mitigations to ensure that the security risk of this use is managed appropriately,” he said.
The premier has deleted his own account, which was used heavily throughout the recent NSW election and had more than 10,000 followers.
“I deleted it last night. That’s the advice from Cyber Security NSW,” he told Sydney radio 2GB on Thursday.
“We’ve looked at other jurisdictions around the world – the European Union, the United States as well as the commonwealth government in the last 72 hours.
“We think it’s the appropriate decision.”
In Tasmania, Premier Jeremy Rockliff said the government was working to implement the policy which would be effective as soon as practicable.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who has more than 100,000 followers, will also delete his account.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, with 30,000 followers, said she was still unsure as to whether she would delete her account.
“The federal government has not banned the accounts, it’s about them being on government devices, we will listen to what the federal government says,” she said.
Responding to the federal government ban earlier this week, TikTok executive Lee Hunter said there was no evidence the app posed a security risk.
“We are extremely disappointed by this decision which, in our view, is driven by politics, not by fact,” he said.
© AAP 2023
