Not if this is the only way to protect its citizens. Not saying it's the case here but forcing a company to sale it's business to a local entity in order to proceed offering it on a local market isn't unheard of and can make sense.
The notion that TikTok is a threat to national security is ridiculous. Truly, “national security” has lost its meaning.
Geolocation data, including: longitude, latitude, and time zone
Device information, including: Android ID, International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), Address Book Access, Device carrier region, Device region, Device type, Device OS version, Device language, Device connection type, and Mobile network code
App information, including: App name
https://www.proofpoint.com/au/corporate-blog/post/understand...
2) The world trusts US companies because unlike China the US is not a dictatorship, has a functioning, independent judiciary and generally abides by international law. So there is a far greater level of trust there because there are legal mechanisms to prevent breaches.
I feel like this always get short shrift in whataboutism discussions.
In China, everything is by law in service and subordinate to the Party.
In the US, not.
That seems like a pretty big difference.
Also, the discussion was about national security and you are giving different arguments here. How is this related to national security?
If you tell me you believe they are equal, I'll take your word for it. While the United States has plenty of flaws, I think they are still far more trusted when it comes to human rights.
Legal mechanisms exist everywhere and can be broken if not by selective enforcement but also by the voters.
In China they can do it anytime Xi Jinping snaps his fingers.
That's why countries do not trust China.
If the military is doing things that civilians commonly do then maybe, you know, they should stop that.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42853072
And the military has already acknowledged that they have a problem with the rampant use of private devices. So any app that harvests a lot of real-time location data can be a problem.
Also if I was the Chinese government I absolutely would be analysing audio/video and capturing contacts for any phones at known military GPS locations.
Anyway, maybe ban the military from installing apps or using civilian phones if it’s a problem??
That article you linked to was not even about TikTock it was about some other app. So removing TikTock is not going to fix the problem.
There are other ways, like enacting laws mandating data storage be in the US.
The only way out is to move engineering, SRE, and testing out of China and hard-fork the codebase.
1. That is illegal.
2. Theoretically this also currently applies to Google, Microsoft, Google (any company which has devs in China) and is a solved problem. Almost all people don't have physical access to data, and those who do need to go through access reviews to do anything.
> Two pieces of legislation are of particular concern to governments — the 2017 National Intelligence Law and the 2014 Counter-Espionage Law. Article 7 of the first law states that "any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law," adding that the the state "protects" any individual and organization that aids it.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/05/huawei-would-have-to-give-da...
I see. That's a fair point.