The app presents ‘an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security,’ says Treasury Board President Anita Anand.
Canada has banned the Chinese social media and messaging application WeChat and the Russian anti-virus program Kaspersky from government-issued mobile devices, citing security risks.
“Effective October 30, 2023, the WeChat and Kaspersky suite of applications will be removed from government-issued mobile devices,” said Treasury Board President Anita Anand in
a statement released Oct. 30. “Users of these devices will also be blocked from downloading the applications in the future.”
Ms. Anand said the decision was made to keep “government information and networks secure,” pointing to the analysis from the Chief Information Officer of Canada that WeChat and Kaspersky present “an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.”
According to the statement, the data collection methods of WeChat and Kaspersky provide the applications on a mobile device with “considerable access to the device’s contents.”
“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,” the statement reads.
Ms. Anand said the decision to ban WeChat and Kaspersky is precautionary, emphasizing there is no evidence that either application has compromised government information, despite the clear risks associated with their use.
The restrictions on WeChat came after Global Affair Canada (GAC)
reported in August that it had
identified “a coordinated network” of disinformation campaigns using the platform to target Conservative MP Michael Chong. Prior to the incident, a Globe and Mail
article citing a top-secret assessment from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service indicated the Chinese regime had targeted the MP over a motion he sponsored in the House of Commons in 2021 to declare Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs in China as genocide.
GAC on Oct. 23 further identified
a “spamouflage” campaign coming from China, targeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, and dozens of Canadian MPs. According to GAC, spamouflage is a tactic that employs networks of recently created or compromised social media accounts to disseminate and magnify propaganda messages across various platforms.
TikTok
Earlier this year, Ottawa announced a ban on another Chinese mobile application, TikTok, from all government-issued devices. This restriction was also imposed over concerns that its data collection methods leave users open to cyber attacks, said then-Treasury Board President Mona Fortier.
In a recent House of Commons Ethics Committee meeting, NDP MP Matthew Green
raised concerns about whether TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is obligated to provide user data to the state under the
National Intelligence Law. Article 7 of that law stipulates that Chinese citizens and civil organizations, including private businesses, are required to support, assist, and cooperate with the communist regime’s intelligence operations.
In response, TikTok senior executive David Lieber confirmed in his
testimony at the committee that ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing, has access to its user data. Mr. Lieber added that the Chinese regime has never requested user data from the company and that they “would not disclose user data to the Chinese government if we were requested to do so.”
When asked by Mr. Green if the Chinese regime can access the data through “other backdoors,” Mr. Lieber stated that “it would be irresponsible for me or any other employee of a technology company to make categorical guarantees about what governments are capable of or incapable of in terms of their ability to conduct activities including hacking on their own initiative.”
Kaspersky
Software from Russia’s Kaspersky Lab was
banned by the United States in 2017 following a series of security concerns. In 2022, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission added the company to the
U.S. Entity List due to national security threats.
In
a 2017 article, Bloomberg cited internal emails indicating that Kaspersky Lab has maintained close collaborations with Russia’s Federal Security Service. In that same year, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) expressed concerns about the company during
a Senate hearing. During the hearing, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agency chiefs were questioned about their willingness to permit the use of Kaspersky software on their networks. They responded with a unanimous rejection.
Jonathan Zhou contributed to this report
