Military personnel banned from using TikTok

MANILA, Philippines — Military personnel are banned from using TikTok amid concerns over its possible use for espionage by China.

Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said the AFP has ordered its personnel to avoid using the China-linked application.

She said soldiers should not open the app in their personal or government-issued mobile phones or other devices.

“It has a cyber-security implication… it’s not being used in China, considering that it’s an application made in China,” she told reporters yesterday.

“Based on the result of research in the United States, it has a listening capability, like it can monitor your activities through your phone. When you download it, you give certain permissions which include use of microphone, use of camera,” Padilla explained. “So they have control  of your phone and they can practically eavesdrop by turning on your phone.”

Padilla noted that this actually becomes noticeable when you use the application and have a conversation with a friend or speak certain words, a user’s social media account suddenly flashes sponsored advertisements that interest him or her.

She said the TikTok ban on military personnel has been in effect for a long time now, although it has not been publicized.

She added the National Security Council brought up the need to ban the use of TikTok many months ago.

Padilla, a cybersecurity expert, stressed however that the directive has nothing to do with the country’s current problems with China in the West Philippine Sea.

In a separate interview over the Howie Severino Podcast of GMA News, she said TikTok and other similar free applications and even virtual assistant applications like Siri and Alexa tend to tempt people to download and use such apps because they are free.

“Because it’s free and we want the service, we just say yes (to requests to access the microphone, contacts, camera) without reading the fine print,” she said.

“Not just TikTok, but the free apps that we have in our gadgets, they have the capability to turn on our microphones, to look at us and watch us while we sleep and turn on our cameras, you know, access our SMS, send messages to our contacts