TikTok has filed a federal court challenge against the government over its recent order to shut down the social media company’s Canadian operations in response to privacy concerns.
The federal government ordered the closure of TikTok’s operations within the country last month, however, individual Canadians may continue to use the app.
The popular social media company is a subsidiary of ByteDance, a Beijing-based tech giant that has come under scrutiny globally for its data-sharing practices.
“This order would eliminate the jobs and livelihoods of our hundreds of dedicated local employees – who support the community of more than 14 million monthly Canadian users on TikTok, including businesses, advertisers, creators, and initiatives developed especially for Canada,” reads a statement from TikTok.
“We believe it’s in the best interest of Canadians to find a meaningful solution and ensure that a local team remains in place, alongside the TikTok platform.”
However, Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne told MPs that the closure will make forcing the company to cooperate with privacy investigations more difficult during a House of Commons ethics committee meeting.
Dufresne noted that privacy laws allow his office to seek a Canadian court order to force the company to provide evidence and testimony during an investigation.
“Certainly in terms of compelling powers, if there’s a refusal to provide us with documentation, it’s easier if the organization is in Canada,” he said on Tuesday.
His office continues to investigate with a final report expected in the coming months.
While the government has yet to share specific details regarding the security risks, the ban was in response to findings from a national security review conducted earlier this year.
According to the Liberals’ policy statement, the ban was predicated on “hostile state-sponsored or influenced actors may seek to leverage foreign investments in the interactive digital media sector to propagate disinformation or manipulate information in a manner that is injurious to Canada’s national security.”
TikTok responded by filing documents in a Vancouver Federal Court last week.
The government’s concerns are similar to those shared by the U.S. and other countries, which have worries about how the app handles private user information.
A U.S. appeals court upheld the legislation to enforce the ban last week, however, TikTok requested that the U.S. Supreme Court intervene.
Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne declined to make any information public as to what caused TikTok’s closure, citing national security laws, nor has Dufresne provided an opinion on the government’s decision.
What is known, however, is that the privacy commissioners’ investigation is focused on whether the company obtained valid and meaningful consent for data collection, use and disclosure of personal information.
“I think the more the public can understand about the decisions of the government, the decisions of my office, the better,” said Dufresne. “There may be some limits in terms of confidentiality, but certainly this is important.”
He added that due to the rapid pace of technology, “websites are evolving very quickly, so we need to be able to have faster application of decisions.”