Regina’s city manager Niki Anderson said the city will be removing TikTok from all mobile devices it provides to employees.
“We have been monitoring it and although we haven’t sent an email to staff yet we will be removing it [TikTok] from employees’ cell phones in the next 24 hours,” Anderson said on Wednesday.
Anderson said she believed that would include about five per cent of 1,650 cell phones the city has provided to employees.
“Knowing that the province has done it and knowing that it has been done federally and that there are some valid concerns around it, we will be removing it from employees’ cell phones,” Anderson said.
The provincial government revealed it would be banning the app from all government owned devices on Wednesday.
“Following discussion with the federal Chief Information Officer and the provincial Information and Privacy Commissioner, the Government of Saskatchewan is banning the TikTok application from all government-owned devices pending the results of the federal threat assessment. This direction applies to all ministries, crowns and agencies; and is also being adopted by the government caucus,” the province said in a statement.
Along with the federal government, Alberta, Nova Scotia and the City of Calgary have all publically announced a TikTok ban from government issued devices.
The U.S. banned the application from government owned devices late last year and the European Commission enacted a similar ban last week.
The trend to remove the app began after it was discovered the app may leave users vulnerable to cyber attacks.
TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, has long maintained that it does not share data with the Chinese government and that its data is not held in China.
The company also disputes claims that it collects more data than other social media apps. However, many countries remain cautious about the platform.
With files from The Associated Press.
