Sydney: Following India and the US, several Australian legislators are proposing to ban TikTok as they too fear the app was being used by the Chinese government to collect users’ data, reported the South China Morning Post.
Recently, Liberal Senator Jim Molan said TikTok was being “used and abused” by the Chinese government. Labor Senator Jenny McAllister has reportedly demanded the TikTok’s representatives to face the Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media.
While TikTok continues to refute the allegations, the move has sparked questions on whether China can really get access to users’ data from TikTok?
The South China Morning Post reported that though the TikTok owner ByteDance have constantly claimed that its data is stored in servers in the US and Singapore but it is not a difficult task for the Chinese government to get access to the data.
In January, the company was reported as saying: “You should understand that no data storage system or transmission of data over the Internet or any other public network can be guaranteed to be 100 per cent secure.”
Further, if a TikTok user decides to delete their content from their device, or even a certain country’s government imposes a ban on the app, the data would not be retrospectively erased. It is because once the information is transferred, it is impossible to retract without the help of the company.