Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Social media has played a significant role in shaping and influencing our world, especially in the last decade. TikTok is a large social media conglomerate that has recently been under fire for good reason. TikTok got a real boost during COVID lockdowns and has been widely adopted, mostly by teenagers and young adults. Approximately seven million Australians now use the platform.

It is posing a new threat, however, that we have not seen from a social media platform yet. TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing. If any of those opposite are unaware, the CCP is frequently putting displays of aggression towards Taiwan and is constantly exploiting its economic power to coerce and interfere in sovereign countries. The CCP's National Intelligence Law came into effect in July 2017. This law requires Chinese citizens and entities to provide full cooperation with CCP intelligence agencies and keep it secret. The US, UK and New Zealand governments have taken action by restricting the use of the platform, and there's now a push to ban the app right across the US. There are genuine concerns about the amount of data that the app can access on your phone—possibly even your location—and I seriously urge caution to TikTok users. Deleting the app is possibly the only way that you can prevent access to your data.

I commend my colleague Senator Paterson for the work that he's doing as the shadow minister for cybersecurity, to raise awareness on this issue—a very important issue. You can't take national security too seriously. It's a very important issue, and I urge the Australian government to act as promptly and as thoroughly as they possibly can.