Lack of data protection of the app – “security risk”: US Republicans want to ban Tiktok – News

  • The Foreign Affairs Committee in the US House of Representatives has introduced a bill that would allow President Joe Biden to ban Tiktok in the US.
  • The committee sees the social media app as a Trojan horse of the Chinese Communist Party.

The clock is ticking for US government employees. Within the next 30 days they must remove the controversial video clip app Tiktok from all their service devices, be they mobile or stationary. The White House banned the Chinese-owned social media app on government phones on Monday.

Similar prohibitions apply to members of the House of Representatives and employees. Several states and the US military have also issued similar regulations in the past.

Concerns about privacy

Now the US Republicans want to go even further: in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, they have introduced a bill that would allow President Joe Biden to completely ban Tiktok in the United States. “Tiktok is a modern day Chinese Communist Party Trojan horse used to monitor and exploit personal information of Americans,” said the committee’s chairman, Republican Rep. Michael McCaul.

Swiss federal employees are allowed to keep Tiktok


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In several Western countries and the EU, government employees have to delete the Chinese social media app Tiktok from their cell phones – this is not currently planned in Switzerland. That’s what the Federal Chancellery said about RSI, the radio and television station in Italian-speaking Switzerland.

However, they will discuss with the responsible EU authority why they have issued a ban – and continue to monitor developments. Tiktok has been criticized for a long time – for example due to insufficient data security. It is feared that the Chinese state could have access to data. Tiktok denies that.

However, the proposal is not yet law. It must first be voted on in the plenary session of Parliament before it can be submitted to the Senate. Tiktok said such a law would have a significant negative impact on the free speech rights of millions of Americans who use and love Tiktok.

The US government has repeatedly identified Tiktok as a potential national security risk. On Wednesday, the White House reaffirmed this view. “We have concerns about collecting data from Americans and the potential risk to national security,” said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, referring to efforts to ban Tiktok in the United States.

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