New Zealand to ban TikTok from parliamentary devices

New Zealand s parliament will ban TikTok from all parliamentary devices due to mounting international security concerns surrounding the app.

The country's MPs were informed by the parliamentary service on Friday that the Chinese-owned video sharing app would be blocked from all parliamentary devices at the end of the month, and were told via email that the Service has determined that the risks are not acceptable in the current New Zealand parliament environment.

New Zealand s decision was followed by similar rulings by some of its major western allies. Earlier in the week, the UK government announced that TikTok would be banned from ministers and civil servants' mobile phones. The ban was already in place in the US, Canada, and the European Commission.

TikTok is owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance and concerns surrounding its security have centred on whether the Chinese state can access data recorded by the app's billion users, or manipulate the algorithm to push pro-China content. TikTok has denied that its algorithms can be manipulated by the Chinese government, saying it hasn't been asked for data and would refuse any future requests.

As relationships with Beijing strained by the shooting of Chinese surveillance balloons, a number of western countries have introduced bans on the app on parliamentary devices with the US going a step further to consider an outright ban on the app. In early March, the White House said it supported legislation that would allow the administration to ban TikTok and other foreign-based technologies completely if they pose national security threats.

The ban on New Zealand does not specifically cover MPs' personal phones, but they have to have the app uninstalled in order to access any parliament applications.

A number of New Zealand MPs use TikTok to post political videos and commentary. The most prolific are Act party leader David Seymour and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi. The M ori party had not responded to requests for comment by the time of publication. A spokesman for Act said the TikTok account of the party is run from a personal phone, free of parliamentary information. We have been taking this precaution for some time.