With the espionage argument, The United States, Canada, and the European Union prohibit the use of Chinese app TikTok in their government devices. For the Chinese authorities, it is an abuse by the Americans.
Officials from those countries will not be able to have TikTok -short video app created by the ByteDance company- on their official smartphones, since they accuse China of using the data for spying.
The Asian government responded to the United States, pointing to it for “abuse their state power” and their “concept of national security”, repressing “unjustifiably companies from other countries.”
Chinese foreign spokeswoman Mao Ning noted, according to EFE: “America, a great power, shows a lack of self-confidence fearing an app popular with young people.”
The United States seeks that the TikTok ban is not only in the government, but in the entire country
TikTok is one of the most popular apps in the world, with more than 3 billion downloads world, as stated by the BBC citing the company Sensor Tower Data.
According to the Americans, ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, shares your data with the Chinese government. There is a Republican plan so that the ban not only covers the Biden administration, but the whole country.
I would continue with this the footsteps of india, that vetoed the use of the video app to the entire nation due to geopolitical problems with China.
In a vote of 24 to 16, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives gave the green light to the Deterrence of Technological Adversaries of the United States Act (DATA, for its acronym in English).
The project seeks to sanction, even ban, TikTok across the country if it is discovered that the company shared user data with persons associated with the Chinese government,
Republican Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas) is pushing the legislation. “TikTok is a modern Trojan horse of the Chinese Communist Party, used to monitor and exploit the personal information of Americans,” McCaul said, quoted by The Verge.
Canada and the European Union also veto the Chinese app
The positions of Canada and the European Union are similar to those of the United States. Canadians point out that the app features “an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security”, and investigate what TikTok does with user data, according to the BBC.
Mona Fortier, President of the Treasury Board of Canada, stated: “On a mobile device, TikTok’s data collection methods provide considerable access to the contents of the phone.”
For his part, Sonya Gospodinova, spokesperson for the European Union, indicated that the measure seeks “protect the Commission against cybersecurity threats and actions that can be exploited for cyberattacks against the corporate environment.
The ban on TikTok on government devices It applies in Canada from this week, while in the European Union it will become effective on March 15.