Maritimers who use social media platforms have plenty to think about after Ottawa announced it's banning the popular video-sharing app TikTok from government-issued devices.
The move comes after similar bans in the U.S. and the European Union, following concerns the China-based company which owns TikTok -- ByteDance Ltd. -- may be compelled to hand over user data to the Chinese government for geopolitical interests.
“I personally love TikTok,” says Haligonian Beth Smith. “But I’m not sure [about] the policies that govern it.”
“If it’s on a government phone, it's government business, if it's on your phone, it's your business,” adds resident Nancy Smith.
“TikTok’s use of our personal data, makes Facebook look like the nicest kid on the block,” says digital anthropologist Giles Crouch, referring to past revelations involving the Meta platform’s exploitation of data during the 2016 American election campaign.
TikTok is the latest social media application to come under fire for what happens to the data it collects from users.
Last September, a whistleblower from Twitter told U.S. Congress “at least one agent” from China's intelligence service was on Twitter's payroll.
All reasons Crouch says users need to be aware of the larger implications of social media sharing.
“They're getting data on TikTok that tells them how Canadian citizens are thinking and behaving, so they're taking that data and they're using that to manipulate Canadian elections, for example,” explains Crouch, referring to reports the Chinese government attempted to meddle in the 2021 federal election.
Cybersecurity and technology experts say keeping social media accounts secure is important on two fronts.
The first is using up-to-date cybersecurity tools such as secure passwords, anti-viral software, authenticator apps, and VPNs (virtual private networks).
“You can install that on your internet browser,” says Crouch. “Have a VPN, you can have it on your smartphone…. it gives you protection because then they can’t figure out where your computer is or who you are. It gives you a degree of anonymity.”
Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity advisor for NordVPN, agrees those tools are important but recommends a second layer of protection. He says that involves users asking themselves just how much information they should share online.
“You're sending out a lot of information about your digital persona,” he says. “Most people should just take a conscious decision, ‘do I want to share the things in my house, my location? Do I want to share the people that I meet, or that I have a really well-paying job?’"
Warmenhoven says too many people give too much information, without understanding just what happens to it.
“If I get a [social media] feed that is personalized to me, like TikTok,” he says, “that means there must be someplace on the internet, on a server where there is a really detailed profile of me, otherwise that feed would not be that perfect.”
Warmenhoven doesn’t use TikTok himself, and he creates curated “digital personas” for other social media applications.
He also blurs his background on Zoom calls, at a time when he says some software is so good, it can identify a person’s location simply from a timestamp and the strength and direction of the sun.
His advice is to “clean up” digital profiles and online file storage: “Practice digital hygiene, and really understand this is part of your life, it's not something separate, it is you,” he says.
Crouch would like to see federal laws address concerns around where user data is stored and what it is used for.
“There is a new [privacy] law, Bill C-27… They need to enact that law fast. The current law is over 20 years old; it is completely insufficient and offers no protection to citizens.”
“We have to get that law updated,” he says.
Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act, is still making its way through Parliament.
