MPs and House of Commons staff are being told not to use the popular Chinese messaging app WeChat due to “potential cybersecurity risks,” at a time of heightened tensions between Canada and China.

On Thursday, the House’s cyber security team sent an email to MPs, their staff and Commons’ administration with the subject line “IT Security Alert – Risks with the WeChat application.”

“Please be advised that the messaging, social media and payment application WeChat poses potential cybersecurity risks to users,” says the email obtained by iPolitics.

“As such, the House of Commons strongly recommends that Members of Parliament and their staff refrain from using it for business—or otherwise sensitive—communications,” the email continues.

The email says the potential “threat” is because messages sent via WeChat aren’t encrypted, making them vulnerable to being intercepted.

It lacks what’s called “end-to-end” encryption, meaning third parties may have back-door access to users’ data and messages.

“Additionally, messages continue to reside on servers even after users have deleted them, with information pertaining to users’ locations saved as well. These servers are located outside of Canada and so are not subject to Canadian privacy laws. Rigorous protections of user data cannot be assured,” the email says.

House of Commons spokesperson Kori Ghergari told iPolitics the alert to MPs and staff was sent as a “preventative measure.”

“They were not in response to a breach, and there are no other reasons for which the alerts were issued. While it may be used for personal purposes, WeChat has not been approved by the House of Commons for parliamentary communication. The alerts were sent to remind users to exercise caution in the digital domain,” Ghergari said.

Along with messaging, WeChat is also a social media and e-commerce app. It’s frequently used in China and by Chinese speakers across the world. The app has close to 1.1 billion monthly active users, and combines features found on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon.

Many Chinese immigrants in Canada also use WeChat to get their daily Chinese-language news, although its content is known to be subject to censorship and manipulation by the Chinese government.

For example, StarMetro Vancouver reported in December that WeChat had been blocking stories about Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou during her bail hearing, at the direction of the Chinese government. After she had been released on bail, the stories were unblocked.

On the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre last month, keywords or pictures related to the event had been scrubbed off the app.

Nevertheless, the app, which is owned by Chinese tech multinational Tencent, has been used by some politicians to reach out to Chinese-speaking voters in Canada.

An infamous example is its use by Liberal candidate Karen Wang during the Burnaby South byelection campaign earlier this year.

She had used the app to urge Chinese-Canadian voters to support her, instead of the only non-Chinese-Canadian candidate in the race, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. She had pointed out that he was “of Indian descent.” Wang was forced to resign as a candidate in January after StarMetro Vancouver reported she had posted the message, which was only accessible in Mandarin.

WeChat could not be reached for comment on Friday. The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa was not immediately available to provide comment.

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There have been concerns raised internationally, including by Canada’s closest allies, about the threat posed by Chinese tech companies because of recently enacted Chinese intelligence laws. Laws passed in 2017 give the Chinese government powers to demand that businesses carry out loosely-defined intelligence activities on its behalf in the name of national security.

Senators were not told about the security risk of using WeChat on Thursday. The Senate of Canada has a separate IT department from the House. It has notified Senators and staff about other security sensitivities in the past.

A staff member in the Senate’s IT department said it sent out a notice in May when Facebook’s messaging app WhatsApp was found to have hidden security vulnerabilities.

Tensions between Canada and China have escalated since December, when Canadian authorities arrested Meng in Vancouver. She was arrested at the request of U.S. authorities, who want her extradited to face criminal charges for her company’s alleged attempts to circumvent U.S. trade sanctions against Iran.

President Donald Trump has also teetered over whether to ban Huawei in the U.S., as the world’s largest economies are locked in a high-stakes trade war.

Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were detained shortly after Meng’s arrest in a move that’s widely seen as retaliation. They remain detained in China and have since been charged with national security-related offences.

The world’s most populous country has also restricted imports of Canadian canola and meat.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed yesterday that Trump raised the issue of the two detained Canadians in his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, at last week’s G20 summit. Only a day earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told reporters in Beijing that Canada would be “naive” believing its allies could help in pressuring China.

With files from Jolson Lim

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