Britain's National Cyber Security Centre is looking into whether Chinese-owned video app TikTok should be banned from government phones, security minister Tom Tugendhat said on Tuesday.
TikTok has come under increasing pressure due to fears that user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government, undermining Western security interests.
The United States, Canada, Belgium and the European Commission have banned the app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd, from government devices.
Tugendhat said when asked if he would like to see TikTok banned from British government phones, the challenges they pose and what they're asking for is incredibly important.
I asked the National Cyber Security Centre to look into this. I haven't had an answer yet. I'm not going to give you that answer yet. In a separate interview with Times Radio he said we need to make sure that our phones are not spyware but useful tools for us. TikTok said it would be disappointed by such a ban.
Similar decisions have been made elsewhere, based on misplaced fears and seem driven by wider geopolitics, but we remain committed to working with the government to address any concerns, a TikTok spokesperson said.
Last week, the White House backed legislation to give the administration new powers to ban TikTok and other foreign-based technologies if they pose national security threats.
Britain on Monday cast China as an epoch-defining challenge to the world order in an update to its blueprint for security and international policy.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday that we look at what our allies are doing, asked if the government was considering a ban on TikTok. We want to make sure that we protect the integrity and security of sensitive information. He said that we will always do that and take whatever steps necessary to make sure that happens.