Canada on Monday banned popular Chinese messaging app WeChat and Russian platform Kaspersky from government smartphones and other mobile devices, citing privacy and security risks.
The suite of applications would be immediately removed from government-issued devices and users would be blocked from downloading them in the future, it said in a statement.
Treasury Board of Canada President Anita Anand, who oversees the federal public service, said the nation’s chief information officer determined the apps “present an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.”
Photo: AFP
No breaches have been detected, but the platforms’ data collection methods on mobile device “provide considerable access to the device’s contents,” she said.
“The decision to remove and block the WeChat and the Kaspersky applications was made to ensure that government of Canada networks and data remain secure and protected and are in line with the approach of our international partners,” Anand said.
Beijing yesterday said that Canada’s decision had been taken “without any actual evidence.”
Photo: Reuters
“The Canadian government has issued a ban targeting Chinese companies under the guise of maintaining data security,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) said.
“China firmly opposes this,” he added.
The move comes after Ottawa in February also banned TikTok — a platform owned by ByteDance in China — on government devices.
Relations between Ottawa and Beijing — already strained over tit-for-tat detentions of a Huawei senior executive and two Canadian nationals in December 2018 — hit a new low earlier this year.
Ottawa accused Beijing of meddling in Canadian elections and the attempted intimidation of MPs that led to the expulsion of a Chinese diplomat in May.
Last week, the Canadian government warned of a “spamouflage” disinformation campaign linked to China that used waves of online posts and deepfake videos manipulated to try to disparage and discredit Canadian lawmakers, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
A public inquiry into foreign interference accusations — which China has rejected — commenced in September.
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