The Donald Trump administration “was taking TikTok very seriously,” said the NSA.
Washington:
China will lose “big tool” for espionage and surveillance if America and some Western European countries ban Chinese apps like TikTok like India does, said US National Security Advisor Robert O ‘Brien.
India last month banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok and UC Browser, saying they were detrimental to the country’s sovereignty, integrity and security.
O’Brien told Fox News Radio in an interview that the Donald Trump administration “very seriously” reviews TikTok, WeChat and certain other apps from China.
“India has already banned these apps, as you know. And if they lose India and the United States, they lose certain countries in Western Europe, which takes away a big tool from the spy job or to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) surveillance work, “he said in response to a question about the dangers posed by applications like TikTok.
“Kids who use TikTok – and it can be a lot of fun – but there are a lot of other social media platforms they could use. TikTok gets facial recognition on you,” said O’Brien.
“They get all your personal and private data, your most intimate data. They get to know who your friends are, who your parents are. They can map all of your relationships,” he added.
All of the information goes directly to the huge cloud supercomputers in China, said O’Brien.
“So China is going to know everything about you. They are going to have biometric data about you. You have to be very careful who you give this personal information to,” he said.
The Trump administration, he said, is looking not only at TikTok, but also at WeChat and some other Chinese apps, because the Chinese are big consumers of American personal data.
“They will try to get you to give it to them for free via WeChat or TikTok – if they can’t get it that way, they will steal it,” said O’Brien.
China, he said, hacked Marriott and stole the personal data of hundreds of millions of people, including their passport numbers.
“They hacked Experian and other credit rating agencies to get the most intimate credit details. They hacked Anthem Healthcare so they could get medical details.
“So it’s not just an advertiser trying to find out what you want to search for on Google so they can sell you another brand of car, it’s a country looking for all the personal information and private as he can, so they know everything about you, “said O’Brien.
He said there were social credit scores in China for people based on their compliance with Communist Party dictates.
“They will soon be able to collect the social credit scores of all Americans and everyone thanks to artificial intelligence and supercomputers,” he said.
“We have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” said the US national security adviser.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that the United States is “certainly” considering “banning Chinese social media applications, including TikTok.
Remarks by US leaders on Chinese social media applications have intervened amid growing tensions in bilateral relations with Beijing on a range of issues, including the coronavirus epidemic and the controversial national security law imposed on Hong Kong. .
The United States has banned Huawei from its 5G networks for security reasons, and Washington has pressured other countries to restrict the operations of the Chinese telecommunications company.
