A spokeswoman for the Victorian government said it had not banned TikTok, saying the Australian Cyber Security Centre regularly gave guidance to departments on best practice. "The Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action has confirmed with its staff that it will not be implementing changes to the existing availability of social media or messaging tools on department devices," the spokeswoman said.

A spokesman for the federal department of agriculture confirmed its TikTok ban and said it regularly reviews its IT rules. An environment department spokesman added that its IT services were provided by the agriculture department.

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Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has previously said her department was conducting a wide-ranging review of TikTok and other social media apps as Australia faces the challenge of a new wave of digital giants based in authoritarian countries.

“The fact that we’ve got millions of Australians accessing an app where the usage of their data is questionable is very much a modern security challenge for the country and no country in the world has found the easy solution for managing this," O'Neil said last year.

That review is ongoing and TikTok has consistently vigorously defended its data security practices, saying it has strict policies to protect users, stores their data in the United States and Singapore and would never share it with the Chinese government.

TikTok has said in the past it collects less information on users than other popular apps, which it uses to keep its app operating and improve users’ experience.

But the company has previously also confirmed that overseas employees – including in China, which has wide-ranging national security laws that could compel firms to aid the government – can access Australian user data. TikTok has previously said access is tightly constrained and overseen by US-based personnel.

In its general advice to Australian users, the government’s Australian Cyber Security Centre warns many social media and messaging services – from WhatsApp to LinkedIn, TikTok and Pinterest to WeChat – collect extensive data and may store it offshore, where it could be accessed by foreign powers outside Australian privacy law.

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