Top secret CSIS document flagged TikTok as potential tool for Chinese government, foreign interference inquiry hears

Canada’s spy agency warned the government in late 2022 that social-media application TikTok has the potential to be a powerful tool for China’s authoritarian government and was already being used to spread disinformation aimed at Western audiences.

A CSIS brief, dated December, 2022, and marked “Top Secret and Canadian Eyes Only,” was declassified, released at the Hogue inquiry into foreign interference this week and raised during public hearings Thursday.

“TikTok, the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) first Western-centric social media application, has the potential to be exploited by the PRC government to bolster its influence and power overseas, including in Canada,” the report says of the video-sharing platform, which has gained enormous market share in North America.

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The analytical brief devotes significant space to bluntly warning that users’ data can be made available to China, and by extension, its ruling Chinese Communist Party. It dismisses avowals delivered by TikTok’s owners and executives that data are protected.

“Despite assurances to the contrary, personal data on TikTok users is accessible to China,” the report says.

But it also highlights another aspect of the wildly popular social-media application, which is owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance: how it allegedly suppresses posts that reflect poorly on non-Western countries and spreads disinformation in North America.

“Open-source research reveals varying degrees of censorship on a range of topics related to democratic values, while also suppressing content that is sensitive, even prejudicial to some non-Western countries,” the CSIS brief says.

“ByteDance recently failed to remove 90 percent of disinformation ads on the 2022 US midterm elections, compared to Facebook and YouTube, which identified and blocked most of them,” it said.

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The report also noted TikTok appears to promote pro-Russian narratives in content related to Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

“Further, TikTok’s algorithm has seemingly directed users to content that features Russian mercenaries fighting in Ukraine, in breach of the platform’s guidelines forbidding content that ‘promotes, normalizes, or glorifies extreme violence.’ ”

The CSIS brief demonstrates how China’s government would be able to gain access to any data on users collected by TikTok.

It alleges this includes biometric data such as a user’s face, facial geometry, iris scans, voice recognition and fingerprints, as well as location, gender, phone numbers, contacts, e-mail addresses and browsing history.

A 2015 Chinese national-security law “compels People’s Republic of China commercial entities and individuals to assist the PRC government and intelligence entities with security issues when required,” the report says.

Also, Chinese laws “may compel locally-employed PRC personnel of Canadian companies to assist in investigations that may expose operating elements of Canadian entities.” A 2017 Chinese national-intelligence law requires Chinese and foreign entities “to provide access to or collaborate with the PRC intelligence entities.”

Separately, the Canadian government on Thursday announced it has 14 intelligence priorities that guide its efforts to safeguard the country, which range from foreign interference and espionage to cyberthreats and Arctic security.

Some of the priorities include “Technological Environment and Infrastructure Security,” “Climate Change and Global Sustainability,” as well as protecting Canada when it comes to “Violent Extremism ” and “Transnational Organized Crime, Cyber Crime, and Border Security.”

Stephanie Carvin, a former national-security analyst and a professor at Carleton University, called the published priorities “a very, very basic introduction to what intelligence is from a Canadian federal perspective.”

She said it’s a “place to start if you are a beginner to thinking about national security,” but said many would want to see a lot more detail in future versions of these priorities.

The federal government banned TikTok from public servant mobile devices in February, 2023, and launched a national-security review of the social-media application in September, 2023. As of Thursday, it’s still continuing.

NDP national director Lucy Watson told the inquiry that her party is not equipped to deal with foreign interference, particularly on social media. She urged Justice Marie-Josée Hogue to recommend a social-media watchdog and government financial support to parties to deal with disinformation and cyber-security attacks.

“The NDP has called for the creation of an independent social-media watchdog and for legislation to bring greater transparency around social media companies’ algorithms,” Ms. Watson said.