TikTok is SAFE in Britain as ‘posting videos of cats’ does not threaten national security, Cabinet Minister says
TIKTOK is safe in Britain for now because people “posting videos of their cats” is not a national security threat, a Cabinet Minister has said.
Darren Jones today allayed fears the UK could follow the US in banning the popular doomscroll app.
China critics have pressed the government to outlaw the Beijing-headquartered site amid possible spying and data harvesting concerns.
Today millions of Americans were denied access to TikTok as their ban kicked in, although incoming President Donald Trump has suggested he could grant a 90-day reprieve.
Mr Jones told the BBC that “national security or data privacy concerns” will be kept “under consideration”.
But the Treasury Chief Secretary added: “We have no plans right now to ban TikTok from the UK.
“So, we won’t be following the same path that the Americans have followed unless or until at some point in the future there is a threat that we are concerned about in the British interest.”
He added: “On Government devices, for example, we’ve not been allowed to use TikTok for many years, the last Conservative government took the same position because there’s sensitive information on those devices.
“But for consumers who want to post videos of their cats or dancing, that doesn’t seem like a national security threat to me.”
Dame Priti Patel said the Tories were not currently pushing for a ban on TikTok, which is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary said: “We have a very, very clear approach – not just from my party, but also in the UK – in terms of China and some of the national security, and, dare I say it, just the day-to-day security concerns that their platforms bring to our country.
“I think it is fair to say we will be following what is happening in America with regards to TikTok on many of the concerns that have been raised over here.”
Asked if she would ban TikTok, Dame Priti said: “I’m not considering it. We should always be looking at what other countries are doing.
How Donald Trump could still save TikTok
On January 17, 2025, the Supreme Court upheld a congressional bill banning TikTok in the United States
The law would not immediately remove TikTok from phones nationwide or force it to go dark.
However, tech companies that continue hosting the app or updating it in their app store could face penalties.
US users with existing TikTok accounts can still access the app freely.
But, TikTok could eventually become obsolete as app stores and cloud providers will no longer be allowed to push out updates for the platform.
President-elect Donald Trump has said he will review the banning of TikTok and will make a decision of platform’s future.
The ban is set to go into effect on January 19, 2025, a day before Trump is sworn in as president.
There are several ways Trump could interfere and save TikTok momentarily.
- President Joe Biden has said he will not enforce the law against tech companies who host TikTok on their app store when it goes into effect on January 19, 2025.
- Instead, Biden said it will leave that decision up to the incoming Trump administration.
- Trump could instruct the Department of Justice to ignore the law and not enforce it, while they work out a deal to separate TikTok from ByteDance, its Chinese-owned parent company.
- The president-elect could also sign an executive order pausing the ban for 60 to 90 days.
- Trump’s team have repeatedly said the president-elect has “expressed desire to save TikTok.”
- “President Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to save TikTok, and there’s no better dealmaker than Donald Trump,” a Trump spokesperson said.