“In some of his most hawkish comments to date, the head of Canadian intelligence agency CSIS is warning Canadians — including teenagers — against using the wildly popular video app TikTok.
“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.”
At the same time TikTok fired back: “These assertions are unsupported by evidence, and the fact is that TikTok has never shared Canadian user data with the Chinese government, nor would we if asked,” TikTok’s spokesperson Danielle Morgan told The Verge about Vigneault’s warning.
These developments follow a recent report urging the Government of Canada to impose a ban on TikTok in Canada.