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.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS