US Senate Committee to vote on bill banning Tik Tok

A United States Senate committee is likely to vote on a bill next week from Republican Senator Josh Hawley that would ban federal employees from using the social media app TikTok on government-issued devices.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is set to take up the 'No TikTok on Government Devices Act' at its hearing on July 22, reported Al Jazeera.

The Chinese ownership of Tik Tok and its wide popularity among American teens have brought scrutiny from US legislators.

TikTok is owned by China's ByteDance. It is widely used to create short videos. Last year, the company said that about 60 percent of its 26.5 million monthly active users in the US are between ages 16 to 24.

One of Tik Tok's harshest critics, Hawley has repeatedly raised concerns of national security over TikTok's handling of user data and was worried that the company shares data with Beijing.

"For federal employees, it really is a no-brainer. It's a major security risk ... Do we really want Beijing having geolocation data of all federal employees? Do we really want them having their keystrokes?" Hawley had told reporters in March when he was announcing the introduction of the bill.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that the US is looking at banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok, suggesting it shared information with the Chinese government. He called upon Americans to be cautious during usage of the mobile application.

Pompeo had earlier lauded India's move of banning over 50 Chinese mobile applications for data protection purposes.

-ANI

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