Taipei: Taiwan's spy agency on Wednesday warned nationals against Chinese mobile applications including RedNote and TikTok, citing potential security breaches after inspecting said apps. The National Security Bureau (NSB) issued a statement highlighting serious violations of users' communication security across various indicators after reviewing five Chinese social media platforms, including Weibo, WeChat, and Baidu Cloud.

According to Anadolu Agency, the NSB conducted investigations across 15 indicators in five categories: personal data collection, data transmission and sharing, excess of usage permission, access to biometric data, and system information extraction. All five inspected apps showed violations of some indicators, with RedNote failing to meet all 15 indicators, while Weibo and TikTok violated 13.

WeChat was found to have violated 10 indicators, and Baidu Cloud violated nine. The security agency remarked that these findings suggest China-made apps pose cybersecurity risks beyond the reasonable expectations for data-collection requirements by ordinary apps. It advised the public to remain vigilant about mobile device security and avoid downloading China-made apps that may endanger personal data privacy and corporate business secrets.

Previously, Taiwan banned TikTok, Douyin, and RedNote on government devices in 2019 due to security concerns; however, private use of these applications is still permitted.