Today (Wednesday), the US House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to grant President Joe Biden the authority to ban the “Tik Tok” application in the United States, after calls for a ban on Google and Apple applications multiplied.
Reuters quoted a representative of the Republican Party (Michael McCall) as saying that the TikTok application represents a threat to national security, adding: “Anyone who installs the TikTok application on his phone gives the Chinese Communist Party a back door to obtain all personal information … allowing information.”
The app has come under increasing criticism recently amid concerns that the Chinese government has gained access to US users' data, which some say harms national security.
This week, the White House ordered all government agencies to ensure that there is no TikTok app on any government device, as more than 30 states in the United States and political institutions in Canada and the European Union have already banned the download of the TikTok application have . on officers' cellphones.
This latest measure faces many obstacles before it becomes law, as the law must pass the US House of Representatives and Senate, which are controlled by Democrats who generally oppose the law, before it is presented to Biden.
Reuters quoted the Biden administration as saying that it had not yet determined its position on the draft, noting that it had previously expressed concerns about the candidacy. White House spokeswoman Olivia Dalton said, "We will continue to look at other actions we can take, including how to engage Congress on this matter."
TikTok is under intense media scrutiny in the US as news outlets continue to report new information about the company's questionable user data practices. Previously leaked information from the company that developed the app, ByteDance, indicated that Chinese employees had access to user data in the United States.
Meanwhile, TikTok is trying to address growing privacy and security concerns with new measures, including setting up an independent panel to review privacy and security policies and increasing transparency about how their data is collected and used.