Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 18th, 2023

[Steve de Eyre]

We have an office in Toronto. As we've said, our operations in Canada are subject to Canadian privacy law.

We're happy to engage further. I'm happy to follow up with some more information about how we protect user data, particularly for younger users.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

If you could follow up on the algorithm piece, I'd love to hear about that as well, please.

[Steve de Eyre]

I'd be happy to.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Khalid.

You can submit any information and data to the clerk of the committee as well, Steve, just so you know.

It is Mr. Villemure's turn now.

Mr. Lieber, I want to make sure that you have your translation on. You're good to go.

Mr. Villemure, you have the floor for six minutes.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today, gentlemen.

Mr. de Eyre, how many countries have banned TikTok?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I think there was a problem with the interpretation.

It is working now, but I would ask you to start over again please, Mr. Villemure.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

How many countries have banned TikTok?

[Steve de Eyre]

I focus on Canada. I don't know what the exact number is, or what you would define as a ban. TikTok is available in most parts of the world—

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Lieber, can you answer my question in that case? How many countries have banned TikTok?

[David Lieber]

Thank you for that question.

I'm aware of one. India has banned the app. However, as you know, there are countries where the app is not available, due to policies, on government devices. I'm not sure how many of those countries there are.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Since February 23, 2023, a number of countries have banned TikTok. They include India, Indonesia and Pakistan, of course. Canada banned TikTok on government devices as of February 28.

Ireland also fined TikTok 345 million euros. Why? What was that to redress?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have to say who the question is for. That will make it easier.

[Steve de Eyre]

I'm happy to take that.

In terms of the government device ban, there have been a few countries that have put forward those policies, including Canada. We've engaged with the Treasury Board Secretariat and the CIO's office to try to better understand what criteria were used to identify only TikTok and to single out TikTok, and whether those same criteria have been applied to other platforms. We operate similarly to other platforms.

I will say that our policy—and we've been public about this—is that there probably isn't a need to have any social media apps, entertainment apps or gaming apps on a government employee's device, but those rules should apply equally to all platforms.

We've actually seen some harmful effects come out of this ban because there was not enough context and information given. In Quebec, in particular, there are a number of doctors who had grown followings of about 80,000-plus on TikTok. They used the platform they had to educate people about medical misinformation around COVID-19, and they would do those duet videos, where you have—

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

The European Union issued a fine of 345 million euros for privacy violations. Now, the Senate of France has alleged that data was sent to the Communist Party of China. I did say “alleged”.

What do you say to that?

[Steve de Eyre]

I will let my colleague, David, answer that one.

[David Lieber]

I'm happy to answer that question.

That fine was imposed, and it was in relation to settings for younger users. The investigation that took place covered the period from July to December in 2020. At the time the investigation was commenced, we had already implemented protocols to make certain teenagers' accounts private by default. Some of the settings that Mr. de Eyre talked about in his opening statement were deployed for all of our users. We addressed those concerns. We disagree with the decision and the fine, and we've appealed that fine.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

The Senate of France said that TikTok was giving the Communist Party of China access to its data. That was alleged in various contexts, but I am referring to the case of the European Union, which was even detailed in a report.

What are your thoughts on that?

[David Lieber]

We've been quite clear that we would not disclose user data to the Chinese government if it made a request. It has not made such a request, and the Chinese government has not asserted the rights over any TikTok user data. The TikTok app itself is not available in mainland China. As we have discussed before, we have a Canadian operating entity in Canada. We have employees in Canada. We have users in Canada, and we're subject to Canadian law. We also have a biannual transparency report where we disclose the number of government requests that we receive from governments throughout the world. Therefore, if we did receive a request from the Chinese government, we would certainly disclose it in our transparency report.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

How does TikTok define transparency, in terms of consent?

[David Lieber]

I'm not sure that I understand the question.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Do people who create a TikTok account understand the extent to which their data may be shared, yes or no?

[David Lieber]

Thank you for the clarification; I appreciate that.

Yes, we do have a privacy policy. We publish information about the data that we collect, how we use it, the extent to which it may be disclosed and under what conditions. We provide extensive settings that users can utilize to the extent that they want to limit information sharing.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I have to interrupt because I only have 30 seconds left.

Do you think users understand how their data is used?

[David Lieber]

We are constantly endeavouring to improve their understanding of how we collect and use data. It's one of the reasons that we provide the settings that we do—so that they can take advantage of those if they want to further protect their privacy. In many instances, as Steve mentioned in his opening statement, those privacy protections are available by default. Users who are under 16 have their accounts set to private by default. Direct messaging is disabled. Livestreaming is unavailable for users who are under 18, and for users who are under 18, there's a 60-minute daily default limit. Those are all industry-leading protections that we deployed, and some of them we deployed several years ago to address some of these very concerns.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Okay.