The US Senate voted on Thursday to ban the download of TikTok on devices , tightening the country's control over the popular Chinese app.
The bill passed by the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, now goes to the House of Representatives, led by Democrats.
“TikTok is a major security risk and has no place on government devices,” said Republican Senator Josh Hawley, the bill’s sponsor.
President Donald Trump, who has many open fronts with China both on trade and over the coronavirus pandemic, has set a mid-September deadline for TikTok to be acquired by an American company, otherwise it will be banned in the United States.
TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance , and Microsoft is in talks to buy the app's US operations.
The bill passed on Thursday states that no government employees, members of Congress or individuals at government agencies can download or use TikTok or any other app developed by ByteDance “on any device issued by the United States or a government agency.”
It states that exceptions are only “any investigation, cybersecurity research activity, law enforcement action, disciplinary action, or intelligence activity.”.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that the US wants to block not only TikTok but also other Chinese apps considered dangerous to Americans' personal data from the country's phones.
Washington says TikTok collects vast amounts of personal data from hundreds of millions of users, which could be transferred to the Chinese government and used for spying.
However, the app denies the claim that American users' data is being sent to China.
