Canada Bans WeChat And Kaspersky On Civil Servants' Devices

 

Canada today banned WeChat and Kaspersky apps from being installed on employee-owned devices. Privacy and security risks were cited as the reason why two applications were banned. WeChat is developed by Tencent from China while Kaspersky is based in Russia. Both countries have strained relations with Canada at this time.

Kaspersky issued a statement regretting Canada's actions without prior discussions with them to hear any concerns about privacy issues. Meanwhile, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Canada imposed the ban without presenting any evidence first.

Canada has previously banned the installation of the TikTok application on the devices of public servants following the steps of the United States, Canada, France and Australia which said the video streaming application was used for spying purposes.