NSC mulls TikTok ban for uniformed personnel

The National Security Council (NSC) is studying the possibility of banning social media platform TikTok among the government’s uniformed personnel to avoid a possible 'data leak.'

“What I can do is to raise this with the National Security Adviser [Eduardo Año] if it would be proper for us to do so kasi alam mo naman dito sa Pilipinas… sabihin curtailment of the freedom of expression, curtailment of the freedom of speech,” NSC Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya said during the Saturday News Forum in Quezon City.

Malaya said banning TikTok among government workers needs to be studied carefully “based on national security consideration.”

“We will discuss this with the National Security Adviser if it will be proper for the Philippines to take this step,” he said.

Several countries, such as the United States, India, and Canada have already announced moves to ban TikTok, owned by a Chinese company, on government phones and state workers.

This is amid concerns that the application might give sensitive use data to the Chinese government.

For the Philippine setting, Malaya clarified that “if there is a need for banning [TikTok], it would not be for public school teachers, it would not be for those in the civilian agencies.”

“It would be for the security sector, I’m talking about the Armed Forces, the uniformed personnel and in particular the intelligence entities of the government —the National Security Council,” he said.

The NSC official also emphasized the need to be “security conscious” due to the “information operations, psychological warfare, and other stuff being…”

“I would think that we should seriously consider for the security sector alone, not for the other civilian agencies of government which are not part of the security sector. Precisely, the reason is for operational security,” Malaya said.

For his part, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson Col. Medel Aguilar said the military has already implemented measures on the use of TiTok.

"Our thoughts on the TikTok, actually, we had initiated precautionary measures so that we can be insulated from the spyware there is in using this application," Aguilar said.

The AFP spokesperson said there were instances when personnel and even visitors were asked to surrender their devices upon entering certain sections of the AFP Headquarters.

Aguilar added that there is a policy that national security and the AFP’s image should not be compromised while military personnel are using social media. —VAL, GMA Integrated News