In a surprising announcement, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said US President Donald Trump would soon take action against Chinese-owned software TikTok that the official believes is posing a national security risk.
Banning TikTok
According to BBC, Pompeo accused the worldwide popular video app is among several that are directly sending data they gather from users to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The official's announcement comes a few days after Trump said he would have TikTok banned in the US.
However, the company has denied the accusations that the Chinese government is controlling its operations or receives the data that the app gathers from its users.
During an interview with Fox News Channel, Pompeo noted Trump's action would be taken into consideration concerning a variety of national security risks that other software present which are connected with the CCP.
The secretary of state said there were plenty of other companies conducting their business within the United States who are possibly supplying sensitive information to the CCP. Pompeo noted the information could include facial recognition patterns, residential addresses, phone, numbers, and contacts.
During the interview, Pompeo said US President Trump has had enough of the risks and will be working on fixing it.
On Friday, Trump told reporters that he was planning on signing an executive order that would move to ban TikTok from operating in the United States. Currently, the app has nearly 80 million active users every month.
ByteDance, a Chinese company, is the owner of TikTok, which is widely used by people around the world, mostly by individuals who are aged 20 years old or below.
Meaningless move
However, despite the US president having the power to block the app from being used in the US, Alex Stamos, who was previously responsible for stopping foreign incursions at both Facebook and Yahoo, said Trump's administration should be looking forward to their next move, as reported by The New York Times.
Stamos states that since the country does not have a powerful Firewall, if the US government successfully blocks TikTok, ByteDance could decide to make the app into a side-loaded Android app or a mobile website, which would be impossible for Trump to block.
Amid the talks of banning the app in the country, tech-giant Microsoft is in the middle of discussions to buy TikTok.
According to CNN, in a blog post on Sunday, CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, said he had talked with Trump about purchasing TikTok. For weeks, several US lawmakers have expressed their worries that the app was giving out sensitive information of its users to the CCP.
The concerns surface amid rising tensions between the US and China over several weeks of accusations of illegal activities from each party.
The company said it was committed to taking the video app and giving it a complete security review and overhaul that would ensure the safety of its users' data and information which would benefit the United States. Microsoft had also noted that it would move quickly to discuss with officials in the coming weeks.
