WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday revoking a Trump-era order aimed at banning TikTok, the popular video app.
Biden’s new order instead called for a broad review of foreign-owned applications and directs the Secretary of Commerce, the Director of National Intelligence and other agencies to provide reports to the president on the potential risk such apps pose to personal data and national security risks.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in August barring U.S. companies from doing business with ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok. The Trump administration also sought to pressure ByteDance to sell TikTok. Trump’s order faced immediate legal challenges and the ban was never instituted.
“By operating on United States information and communications technology devices, including personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including United States persons’ personal information and proprietary business information,” Biden’s executive order reads.
“This data collection threatens to provide foreign adversaries with access to that information. Foreign adversary access to large repositories of United States persons’ data also presents a significant risk.”