The White House has warned that the TikTok social network is a possible national security risk, claiming that the Chinese-owned app might be trying to collect data from citizens americans.

This has been stated by the White House spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, who has confessed that the Biden Administration is worried about the appwhich is why on Monday government officials were banned from having it installed on their mobile devices.

“We are concerned about the application. We are concerned when it comes to data on Americans: the collection of data from Americans and the potential security risk national”, Jean-Pierre stated at a press conference.

asked by one possible TikTok ban on all devices in the United States, the White House spokeswoman has referred the decision to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which is investigating the platform.

“TikTok raises a problem and a question. And so we have concerns about that as far as data from Americans is concerned,” Jean-Pierre reiterated, without specifically answering the question.

US officials have repeatedly expressed concern that the Chinese government can pressure ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, to deliver the information collected from users with the aim of using it for intelligence or disinformation purposes, CNN has reported.

In addition to the United States, Canada and the European Union have also announced a ban on TikTok usage officials on official mobiles, on the occasion of the concerns around cybersecurity and protection of the data of its users.

However, TikTok has rejected such a possibility and has considered the decision adopted by the community institutions last week as “wrong” and based “on misconceptions.”