Ottawa bans China’s WeChat, Russian-made app suite from government devices – National

Chinese messaging application WeChat and the Russian-made Kaspersky suite of apps will be banned from government-issued phones starting Monday.

Treasury Board president Anita Anand said in a statement that these web apps “present an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security,” citing a determination from Ottawa’s chief information officer.

“On a mobile device, the WeChat and Kaspersky applications data collection methods provide considerable access to the device’s contents,” the Liberal government’s statement read.

WeChat is a popular messaging and payment platform developed by Tencent in China.

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Kaspersky, meanwhile, is a Russia-founded software developer that says it operates out of a holding company in the United Kingdom. The firm develops a suite of cybersecurity tools.

There is “no evidence that government information has been compromised” as a result of using the apps, according to the statement.

As of Monday, both sets of apps will be removed from government-issued mobile devices and future downloads will be blocked.

“The Government of Canada continuously works to safeguard our information systems and networks to ensure the privacy and protection of government information. We will continue to regularly monitor potential cyber threats and take immediate action when needed,” Anand said.

The announcement did not provide specific guidance to Canadian citizens in using the apps, calling such decisions a “personal choice” and deferring to guidance from the Communications Security Establishment’s Cyber Centre.

The federal government previously banned the Chinese-owned short-form video app TikTok from government devices in March, also citing privacy and security risks.

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