SAN DIEGO — A bill that would lead to a nationwide ban of the app TikTok is in the hands of the U.S. Senate.
The bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support. U.S. lawmakers have long said that TikTok poses a serious national security threat because of data and privacy concerns.
The app is one of the most popular social media platforms, used by 170 million Americans.
Lawmakers on both sides of the isle have voted to move forward with a bill that could ban TikTok in the U.S. unless the platform cuts ties with its China-based owner ByteDance.
“It’s testament to the dangers if you will, or some of the challenges that are presented with TikTok that we have this truly kind of bipartisanship legislation going through," said Matt Stamper, CEO of Executive Advisors Group.
Lawmakers argue the app’s data handling practices pose a cybersecurity and national danger to the country.
“It’s clearly not an application that values privacy it’s an application that is designed to soak up as much information on consumers and the individuals that know these consumers," said Stamper.
Stamper, a cybersecurity expert, says he believes lawmakers are moving in the right direction.
“Any user that has TikTok on their phone is giving away a tremendous amount of their personal data, whether it’s their location, their friends and contacts, their photos, their voice, their video,” he said.
Stamper believes the app poses a significant threat to San Diego specifically.
“We are a military town. We have the Navy, we have the Marines. Applications like TikTok actually present a real and present danger in many cases to individuals that work in our armed forces," he added.
San Diegans say they agree with the ban.
“I think it’s really bad for people’s attention span personally," said one resident.
“They’re just gathering a lot of information," added another San Diegan.
TikTok insists that it has never shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government.
If passed, the bill would give ByteDance six months to sell the app or it would be removed from U.S. app stores.
Senate lawmakers have indicated it would undergo a thorough review. Senator Majority leader Chuck Schumer says he will be consulting with committee chairs to determine the bill’s path.
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