Security News > 2020 > January > TikTok Banned By U.S. Army Over China Security Concerns

Despite its popularity with users and celebrities - the app touts over 1.3 billion installs worldwide - several incidents over the past year have caused privacy experts to question how data from TikTok is being collected, used and whether it is being censored by China's government.

The ban follows guidance issued Dec. 16 by the U.S. Department of Defense, which identifies TikTok as having potential security risks associated with its use, a U.S. Army spokesperson told Threatpost.

In a separate but related incident this week, TikTok released its first-ever transparency report, showing data access requests from various countries - but China was notably absent.

When reached for comment, a TikTok spokesperson told Threatpost that the transparency report "Only included countries in the report where we'd received a request; the TikTok app does not operate in China and did not receive any requests from China, which is why it's not included."

TikTok's relationship with China came to the forefront after a September report found that popular hashtags related to the Hong Kong protests, which have been utilized on Twitter and Instagram, such as #HongKongProtesters and #HongKongProtests are barely existent on TikTok.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/tiktok-banned-by-u-s-army-over-china-security-concerns/151480/