A released press release on Wednesday, May 12, 2021, stated unanimously, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed a bill that would ban United States federal employees from downloading the TikTok app on government devices.
The bill was sponsored by Senator Josh Hawley, calling TikTok “an immediate security threat.”
In a statement, Hawley said: “This should not be a partisan issue and I’m glad to see my colleagues in the Senate act together to address Beijing’s covert data collection campaign.”
In August 2020, a bill introduced by Representative Ken Buck a similar bill in the House that was unanimously approved by the Senate.
The United States has concerns over ByteDance, a company owned by China. With various degrees of success, TikTok has tried to distance itself from its owner.
