New Zealand lawmakers banned from TikTok amid data use fears

By NICK PERRY
Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand lawmakers and other workers inside the nation’s Parliament will be banned from having the TikTok app on their government phones. The ban announced Friday follows similar moves in many other countries. However, New Zealand’s ban will apply only to about 500 people in the parliamentary complex, not to all government workers like bans in the U.S. and Britain. Other New Zealand agencies could decide later to broaden the ban. Global concern about the app comes after warnings by the FBI and other agencies that TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance could share TikTok user data with China’s authoritarian government.