Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of Parliament.

I'm pleased to be joining today's meeting. I'd like to acknowledge that we're meeting on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation.

My name is Sami Khoury and I'm the head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, also known as the cyber centre. The cyber centre is part of the Communications Security Establishment.

As Canada's technical authority on cyber security, we use our expertise to keep safe the information and systems that Canadians rely on every day.

We work to protect and defend the country's valuable cyber assets, lead Canada's federal response to cybersecurity events and raise Canada's cybersecurity bar so that Canadians can live and work online safely and with confidence.

At the cyber centre, we share advice and guidance with Canadians regarding online dangers. This includes informing them how they can protect themselves and their organization most effectively from the threat social media apps could potentially pose.

We also help inform Government of Canada policy decisions regarding cyber security, including the use of social media apps, which are an important online communications tool to reach Canadians.

In February of this year, the Treasury Board Secretariat issued a statement announcing the ban on the use of the TikTok application on government-issued mobile devices. As recently as last week, a similar announcement was made regarding the use of WeChat. Both decisions were made by the chief information officer of Canada, who assessed that the apps in question present an unacceptable level of risk. While these bans apply solely to government-issued devices, both TBS statements led Canadians to guidance published by the cyber centre.

In our unclassified national cyber-threat assessment 2023-24 report, we assessed that foreign states are using social media to target Canadian individuals. Public reporting by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab detailed how cyber-threat activity has targeted activists in Canada through disinformation or intimidation on social media, denial-of-service attacks against their organizations and compromise of their personal devices.

Beyond cyber-threat activity against individuals, states are very likely using foreign-based social media and messaging applications popular with the diaspora groups in Canada and around the world to monitor communications. States can take advantage of permissive terms of use and their own legislative powers to compel data sharing. This activity threatens the privacy of the communities using these applications.

Canadians with commercially sensitive information on their devices should be especially cautious when granting access to their devices.

Not all instant-messaging apps and social media platforms are created equal. Some platforms are more responsible, where you potentially don’t have to worry about the data falling into the hands of a nation-state, but other platforms are too close to that line.

The cyber centre strongly recommends that Canadians make well-informed decisions for themselves about what online services they are willing to use.

Conducting these assessments and making these decisions does not have to be difficult, and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security has published online resources to make this process easier.

The cyber centre recommends researching the app or platform to determine whether it is trustworthy. This includes reading the terms of use and conditions. Find out what is being said about a particular app in the media and other trusted sources and, most importantly, know what you are consenting to. Ask yourself whether this app really needs access to your personal data, like your contacts list. While it may seem unimportant to review a platform’s security and privacy functions, doing so allows you to avoid using apps that lack strong authentication protections and is well worth the time invested.

Finally, always prioritize security over convenience, and consider where your data is being stored and how this may affect your privacy.

In conclusion, social media has changed the way Canadians communicate, stay in touch and build new relationships.

As the social media threat landscape continues to evolve, Canadians must make sure to make responsible and informed decisions about how best to protect themselves and their information online.

If you can inform yourself to adopt better privacy and security protection, you could also help to support your family members and loved ones.

Again, thank you for the invitation to appear today. I welcome any questions you may have.

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