TikTok a spy balloon on phone, says lawmaker as US ban looms

The US House Foreign Affairs Committee has voted along party lines to give President Joe Biden the power to ban Chinese-owned TikTok, in what would be the most far-reaching US restriction on any social media app.

The fate of the measure is still uncertain and it would need to be passed by the full House and US Senate before it can go to Biden.

But it is latest salvo in the Western community's battle over the Chinese-owned video sharing app - which includes the European Parliament, the European Commission and the EU Council having banned TikTok on official devices. Canada has also banned the app from government devices.

TikTok is wildly popular among teens, but there are concerns China could use its legal and regulatory powers to obtain private user data or to try to push misinformation or narratives favoring China on the platform.

China has long blocked many foreign social media platforms and apps, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. A Chinese version of the app, Douyin, is permitted, but its content is not the same as that found on TikTok.

The US Congress has already banned TikTok on government devices.

US lawmakers voted 24 to 16 to approve the measure to grant the administration new powers to ban the ByteDance-owned app which is used by over 100 million Americans .

"TikTok is a national security threat ... It is time to act," said Representative Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the committee who sponsored the bill. "Anyone with TikTok downloaded on their device has given the CCP (Communist Party of China) a backdoor to all their personal information. It's a spy balloon into their phone."