Barrie and Innisfil, Ont., are joining a grown list of municipalities banning the social media platform TikTok on all municipal devices, following concerns raised over cyber security risks.
The City of Barrie and the Township of Innisfil have banned TikTok on all city-owned devices as of Monday, March 13.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the City has followed suit of the Federal and Provincial Governments and a growing list of municipalities to ban TikTok from all City devices,” said Scott Lamantia, City of Barrie manager of marketing and communications.
Lamantia also noted the city has never had a corporate presence on TikTok.
The township’s manager of IT, Grant Cowan, echoed Barrie’s reasons, saying the move was made out of “an abundance of caution.”
“There is no impact to Town services or information sharing as we do not have a corporate Tik Tok account. This decision is in alignment with what federal, provincial and municipal governments are doing across the country and is a precautionary and safety measure most organizations like ours have implemented.”
Last week, the provincial government confirmed it was banning the social media app on government-owned devices and on the personal devices of Progressive Conservative Party caucus members.
The move follows an announcement from the federal government a week prior that the app would be prohibited on government devices following a review by Canada’s chief information officer.
Ontario was the last Canadian province to announce the ban, with all others following the federal government’s lead.
Government agencies in the United States, India, Taiwan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the European Union have made similar moves.
The Chinese government has a stake in TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, and Chinese laws allow the country to demand access to user data, raising concerns over data privacy and cybersecurity risks.
The company that owns TikTok maintains that it does not share data with China’s government and its data is not held in that country.
— with files from The Canadian Press