Intelligence chief warns Canadians that China can use TikTok to spy on them

My answer as director of [the Canadian Security Intelligence Service] is that there is a very clear strategy on the part of the government of China ... to be able to acquire ... personal information from anyone around the world, said CSIS director David Vigneault in an interview with CBC's The House airing Saturday.

As an individual, I would say that I would absolutely not recommend someone have TikTok.

Vigneault said it's very clear from the app's design that data gleaned from its users is available to the government of China.

Most people can say, 'Why is it a big deal for a teenager now to have their data [on TikTok]?' Well in five years, in 10 years, that teenager will be a young adult, will be engaged in different activities around the world, he told host Catherine Cullen.

If you are, for whatever reason, getting in the crosshairs of the [People's Republic of China], they will have a lot of information about you.

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His comments come a week after CSIS released an annual report which warned about (new window) Chinese President Xi Jinping's growing extraterritorial reach.

The report said the Chinese president has introduced provisions giving Beijing the ability to control data in China, and expansive laws that require Chinese citizens anywhere in the world to assist and cooperate with China's intelligence services.

WATCH: CSIS chief warns of the dangers of TikTok 

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They're using big data analytics, they have amazing computer farms crunching the data, they are developing artificial intelligence ... based on using this data, Vigneault said.

The ultimate goal is always to protect the interests of the Chinese Communist Party. And so from that point of view, in many ways, this is a threat to the way we live. 

TikTok argues servers hosted outside China 

Vigneault is just the latest Western official to raise concerns about TikTok putting sensitive user data in the hands of the Chinese government.

TikTok's parent company ByteDance is also accused of helping to build (new window) China's system for cracking down on the Uyghur minority, and of targeting protesters (new window) in Hong Kong.

Critics say they fear China could continue to use TikTok's content recommendations to spread misinformation and bury dissent.

TikTok has long maintained that its servers are outside of China and beyond the control of the Chinese Communist Party, and that it follows Canadian data protection and privacy laws.

In a statement issued Friday, Danielle Morgan, a spokesperson for TikTok in Canada, called CSIS's assertions unsupported by evidence. 

TikTok has never shared Canadian user data with the Chinese government, nor would we if asked, she said. 

Singling out one platform and making unsupported accusations does not make Canadians safer. We will continue to engage with Canadian officials and would welcome the opportunity to meet with CSIS to discuss how we protect the privacy and security of Canadians.

Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that gives TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, one year to sell the app to avoid a ban.

In response, both ByteDance and content creators are suing the U.S. government in separate lawsuits.

Vigeault stopped short of recommending publicly that the Canadian government ban TikTok if it doesn't cut ties with the Chinese government.

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Last fall, the Liberal government ordered a national security review of TikTok. A spokesperson for Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said in March that the government could take action if a case under review is found to be injurious to Canada's national security. 

Vigneault said he'll take part in that review and offer advice.

I think the government has made the first step in recent months when it banned the use of TikTok on government devices. I think it was a very astute approach to take, he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday his government is watching to see how TikTok responds to the U.S. bill.

Obviously, as a government we lean heavily on CSIS and our intelligence agencies to keep Canadians safe. And when the director of CSIS is pointing out that TikTok poses a real threat to the data security of Canadians, I think Canadians need to listen, he said during a media availability in Winnipeg.

We know that a lot of people, particularly young people, enjoy using TikTok and we need to make sure that usage is safe. So we're going to follow carefully, but before taking any drastic actions, let's see how the company responds.

WATCH | Trudeau asked about potential U.S. TikTok ban 

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Vigneault is not the only senior Canadian intelligence official to weigh in on the use of TikTok.

In an interview last year, Sami Khoury, the man who oversees cybersecurity for the federal government, said Canadians should be wary of apps that could put their data in the wrong hands and should question their own data collection policies.

Why does an application need to access all of my contact list? Why does it need to access my calendar, my email, my phone records? said Khoury, head of the Communications Security Establishment's Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.

You layer on top of that the risk of connecting my 200 [contacts] with your 200 and then you have an aggregate of information. In some cases, it lands in places that don't live by the same principles of rule of law [and] respect for human rights.

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With files from Catherine Cullen