REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Acquire Licensing RightsOTTAWA, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Canada on Monday banned Chinese messaging application WeChat and Russian antivirus program Kaspersky on government-issued mobile devices due to privacy and security risks, but said government information had not been compromised.
WeChat and Kaspersky did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"The decision to remove and block the WeChat and the Kaspersky applications was made to ensure that government of Canada networks and data remain secure and protected and are in line with the approach of our international partners," the statement said.
The applications will be removed from government-issued mobile devices on Monday, and users will be blocked from downloading them in the future.
Canada in February banned TikTok, the short-video app owned by Chinese company Bytedance, from government-issued devices due to similar privacy and security concerns.
Persons:
Dado Ruvic, Kaspersky, TikTok, Ismail Shakil, Yuvraj Malik, Grant McCool
Organizations:
REUTERS, Rights OTTAWA, HK, Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury, Thomson
Locations:
Canada, Moscow, Ottawa, Bengaluru