China said it “strongly opposes” the WeChat ban
Ottawa:
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 will not be able to download them in the future, a statement said.
Anita Anand, chair of the Treasury Board, which oversees Canada’s federal public service, said the country’s chief information officer has determined the apps “pose an unacceptable risk to privacy and security.”
No breaches have been discovered, but the platforms’ data collection practices on mobile devices, she added, “provide significant access to the device’s content.”
“The decision to remove and block the WeChat and Kaspersky applications was made to ensure that the Canadian government’s networks and data remain safe and secure and consistent with the approach of our international partners,” Anand concluded .
Beijing said Tuesday that Canada’s decision was made “without any factual evidence.”
“The Canadian government has issued a ban on Chinese companies under the guise of maintaining data security,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
“China strongly opposes this,” he added.
The move comes after Ottawa also banned TikTok – a platform owned by China’s ByteDance – on government devices in February.
Oracle was tapped last year to store all of US users’ TikTok data after President Joe Biden revoked his predecessor Donald Trump’s executive orders banning TikTok and WeChat from US markets over national security concerns.
Relations between Ottawa and Beijing – already strained over the arrests of a senior Huawei executive and two Canadian nationals in December 2018 – reached a new low earlier this year.
Ottawa accused Beijing of meddling in Canada’s elections and the attempted intimidation of parliamentarians 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 discredit and discredit Canadian lawmakers, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to bring.
A public inquiry into allegations of foreign interference – which China has rejected – opened in September.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
