The US has expanded its prohibition on using TikTok on devices that are owned and operated by the government after New Jersey and Ohio joined other states in doing so on Monday. Democratic Governor of New Jersey Phil Murphy announced that he would also be prohibiting software providers, goods, and services from over a dozen companies, including Huawei, Hikvision, Tencent Holdings LTD, ZTE Corporation, and Kaspersky Lab.
According to Murphy’s office, ‘there have been national security concerns regarding user data that ByteDance would be required to transfer to the Chinese government.’
As a result of security worries that user data might be shared with China through the app, several US states have already enacted similar bans on the ByteDance-owned app. It has also been banned from all US House of Representatives-managed devices.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who is a Republican, said in his order ‘these surreptitious data privacy and cybersecurity practices pose national and local security and cybersecurity threats to users of these applications and platforms and the devices storing the applications and platforms.’
TikTok hasn’t said on the latest decision yet, but had earlier said that the concerns are a result of misinformation.
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